Coleen Nolan and her family have to use humour to get through their cancer troubles.
Coleen Nolan has to use humour to get through the cancer troubles in her family
The 58-year-old TV star explained that it is "laughable" just how much the disease has hit her famous singing family and as elder sister Linda, 64, battles incurable brain cancer explained that it seems so "unrealistic" and admitted that losing sister Bernie - who died in 2013 at the age of 52 - was a "massive blow" for them all.
She told The Sunday Mirror's Notbeook magazine: "Breast cancer has hit my family so much that it's laughable. We get through it all with humour because what has happened to us is a joke. Just when you think it can't hit us anymore, it comes back and whacks us again. If it was on a film, you'd think it was an unrealistic storyline because surely so much couldn't happen to one family. But it does and it has. Anne's diagnosis hit me like a ton of bricks. Luckily, she caught it so early. She said she felt what was like a grain of sand in one of her breasts.
"She had chemotherapy , but she didn't have to - she just had to have a lumpectomy. But by the time they caught Linda's, it was quite advanced so she needed a mastectomy. I still thought 'Well, Anne's managed to do it, so Linda will'.
"When I got the call about Bernie's diagnosis, I cried my eyes out. I remember thinking that we couldn't be lucky enough to survive this. I had this awful feeling. Losing Bernie was a massive blow to the family. If there was a party to be had, Bernie would find it. If there was a reason to get us all together, she would do it. She was the smallest of us all but the most enigmatic."
The 'Loose Women' panellist went on to add that she tries not to "overthink" the possibility that she may become ill with cancer herself but checks herself very often and is "not afraid" to seek help if she is concerned.
She added: "I try not to overthink it because I could scare myself to death. Worrying isn't going to help me, and stress, if anything, could lead to other problems. I try not to let it consume my life. But because I am aware of it, I check myself and I am not afraid of seeking help. Hopefully, if something did happen, I would be able to catch it in time so could be treated."
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