LINDA Nolan gave a major health update on Good Morning Britain today as she continues to live with incurable cancer.
The Nolans singer, 65, overcame breast cancer in 2005, but 12 years later the illness returned and has since spread to her brain, bones and liver.
But the brave star has remained positive and today told Susanna Reid and Richard Madeley that her cancer is keeping at bay.
She said: “My scan showed that there’s no progression in the disease in my bones and liver, and the tumours in my brain have shrunk a little. That was a day before my birthday.
“We had a party – either way we were going to have a party. But it was good news, so we really had a party.”
Two of Linda’s sisters – Anne and Bernie – also suffered from cancer as she explained how genetics has played a factor in her illness.
She said: “Normally it’s the BRAC gene and if it’s in one, it can be in others. They don’t think we were just unlucky getting cancer, all three of us, they think it’s a rogue gene. But their cancers were different.”
Bernie died from her illness in 2012 aged just 52 while Linda’s husband Brian died from skin cancer in 2007.
Susanna then asked Linda what advice people would give to family members or friends who get diagnosed and perhaps don’t say the right thing.
Linda said: “I haven’t read the bad stuff online, I see one bad word and move on. It does affect you if somebody says something to you…
“I found the first time I lost a few friends in the fact they didn’t know what to say and so they didn’t say anything. It was a real shock because two of them were great friends, we’re alright now.
“At the time they said, ‘We didn’t know what to say’ and I said, ‘Say that, ‘I don’t know what to say, but I’m here for you.’”
Linda also praised Kate, the Princess of Wales, who revealed she has cancer in a video message to the nation.
She said: “I thought it was perfect. I’m suffering myself and I listened and I took everything in and she’s so right for someone who has been diagnosed. Hope – you’ve got to have hope and people around you that love you.”
Good Morning Britain airs weekdays from 6am on ITV1 & ITVX
