Coleen Nolan has shared that her sister Linda Nolan chooses to remain unaware of how much time she has left amid her ongoing battle with breast cancer, which has now spread to her brain, bones, and liver.
The former Nolans singer, aged 59, felt compelled to speak out about her family’s struggles following Sir Chris Hoy’s announcement that his cancer is terminal. Having already experienced the loss of another sister, Bernie Nolan, to breast cancer in 2013, Coleen empathises deeply with the pain the Hoy family is currently enduring.
During Tuesday’s (October 22) episode of Loose Women, Coleen opened up to the panel about her understanding of the emotions Sir Chris and his loved ones might be experiencing.
She then turned the conversation to her sister Linda, who is valiantly fighting the disease daily. Coleen praised Linda’s strength to the panel, audience, and viewers at home, saying: “I know my sister Linda at the moment, who’s been amazing and is still amazing, I’m in awe of her every day.”
Coleen continued by revealing Linda’s perspective: “But I know, for her, one of the things she doesn’t want to know is how long she’s got left. Because she feels that once she’s given that prognosis that it would probably make her just give up trying to live”, reports the Mirror.
Displaying deep emotion, Coleen added: “At the moment, she’s still having treatment – and that’s what’s keeping her going you know – ‘as long as they’re still going to treat me then I’m going to keep on going’.”
Despite Linda’s optimism and her ongoing treatment, her sister Coleen has noticed moments when Linda seemed to have struggled with the notion of “not being here” anymore.
Coleen shared that Linda often speaks more candidly now about the limited time she feels she might have, noting: “But she does say more often than not now, she’ll say things like ‘well no, let’s do that this week because I might not be here next week.’ Or she’ll say she’s ‘now doing more because she’s living each day like it might be my last day’ and ‘I might not have tomorrow’ so that mindset has changed.”
The Nolan family, famous for their entertainment careers, has faced a litany of cancer-related tribulations, including Coleen who used cream for skin cancer years ago, while their other sister Anne is now cancer-free.
Regardless of the battles they’ve faced, Coleen confessed to still being “shocked” when hearing about others diagnosed with cancer, mentioning how the fitness of individuals like Chris doesn’t seem to align with such illnesses. She told her co-hosts: “I was still shocked to learn about Chris, you know he was such a fit and athletic man that you just don’t think this can happen.”
Loose Women airs on ITV1, from 12:30pm, weekdays.