Anne Nolan has spoken about losing her late sisters as she opens up about becoming cancer-free.
Appearing on Good Morning Britain on Monday morning, Anne shared the exciting news that she is officially cancer-free after being diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time in 2020.
The former singer from The Nolans told Ed Balls and Charlotte Hawkins that after hearing the good news, she immediately thought of her sisters who had died.
Linda Nolan died in January at the age of 65, and Bernie Nolan died in 2013 at the age of 52, both from breast cancer.
‘It’s been very traumatic. When I received the letter a few weeks ago, I picked it up, and it said NHS, and I thought, “Oh I don’t want to know, I’m not sure if I want to know if it’s bad news”.
‘And I put it aside for about ten minutes, and after a while, my logical brain kicked in and said, ‘You have to find out, you need to know.
‘I opened it and it was all good news, and I had a bit of a weep at the beginning. I feel lucky, blessed, relieved, and then emotional thinking about my sisters having gone through the same thing but not surviving.’
She then spoke about her own cancer journey, which has been going on for five years.
‘I rang the bell five years ago after I finished my chemo, but then you have another five years before you’re actually told that the cancer is no, it hasn’t come back.
‘Yeah, I had a mammogram every year for five years, and the last one was in May this year. But I did think about Linda at the time and Bernie as well. Bernie is like Bernie has been gone now about 12 years.
She added that she’s sure Linda is looking down on her, thinking ‘thank goodness.’
She reflected that although she and Linda had been diagnosed with cancer around the same time, Linda did not survive the ordeal.
‘Linda received her diagnosis about a week after me, actually, and we went through it together during Covid.’
She then reminisced on this time together: ‘Linda and I were there to support each other. We had our chemo together. She was the one who called us the chemo sisters. She was always in a good mood, always happy and kept me going because I had, I had a bad time during my chemo, and it was great to have her support.
‘And then when her cancer spread, she didn’t survive.’
This interview comes after the star announced the news publicly just a few days ago.
On social media, she shared a long message with fans: ‘Now, five years later, I’m overjoyed to share that my latest results show I am cancer free.’
In an interview with The Mirror, she shared that she immediately thought of her sisters who had died from cancer.
‘Although I was absolutely thrilled, I did think about them,’ she said. ‘I didn’t feel guilty because it’s nothing to do with me but I did feel sad that they weren’t as lucky as I was. It’s an emotional thing for me to think about them not surviving and then I did survive. But that’s just the luck of the draw.’
She added that she now is ready to seize life and ‘grab everything with both hands.’
‘When you’ve had a life-threatening disease and you’ve lost two sisters then it brings it all to the forefront,’ she said.
‘It makes you value life. You grab everything with both hands. Whenever I’m asked to do something, I say yes straight away. When you come through it and you’re at the other end and you think, well I didn’t die and I’m alive and I’m gonna live every day.’
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