Linda Nolan is to start a new cancer drug after scans showed the tumours in her brain have grown.
The singer, 65, part of the family pop group The Nolans, was initially diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005 and the disease resurfaced in 2017 and in March 2023 revealed it has spread to her brain, bones and liver leaving her in need of a wheelchair. “I sobbed when my consultant first told me (about the growth of the tumours),” she told The Mirror.
“I know so many people are suffering and going through things, but I thought, just for once, could cancer just leave me alone? My heart sank. I had feared something was wrong. My balance has been getting worse and my memory my sisters have to prompt me when I get lost in the middle of a sentence.
“Maureen came with me to the appointment and my Macmillan Cancer Support nurse was in the room, and I could just tell. I asked my consultant straight away: ‘Has it spread?’ When he told me, I immediately asked: ‘What do we do now?'”
The new treatment will include the drug Enhertu, Linda said: “To be able to try a new drug is amazing, I just wish everyone could have this opportunity. To be able to try this is hope it’s a plan B not everyone is being allowed. To take this drug away from women is to take away their hope.”
The life-extending drug for incurable breast cancer is not currently available on the health service in England after its manufacturers and the NHS spending watchdog failed to reach an agreement on price.
Speaking about the potential side effects of the drug, she said: “I asked my consultant ‘will I lose my hair again’? and it is a possibility. I told him: ‘That will be five times I’ve lost my hair! But if it happens, I’ll just shave it again. Thankfully, he is not saying ‘we can’t do anything for you’. We have more places to go. I am ready to try anything. I have done this before and I can do it again.”
It comes after Nolan told ITV’s Good Morning Britain (GMB) in December that her brain tumours had shrunk. She said at the time: “It’s amazing… When we went in, I knew straight away that it was good news by the look on my consultant’s face. He said that the scans were good the MRI and the CT scan and that there is shrinkage with the tumours.”
Linda’s sister Anne, whom she joined on TV series The Nolans Go Cruising, was diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time in 2020 and is now cancer-free. Loose Women star Coleen revealed she was diagnosed with skin cancer last year and said her sister Maureen would often point at a “tiny bit of skin” on her shoulder that was a “bit red”, before she decided to see a doctor.
Their sister Bernie died of breast cancer in 2013 aged 52.