Nolan sisters Linda & Anne BOTH have cancer – and were diagnosed within days of each other
FOR more than 40 years Linda and Anne Nolan have performed side by side on stage as members of iconic Irish girl group The Nolans. But last month the sisters sat next to each other for a very different experience, as they endured a gruelling round of chemotherapy together at Blackpool’s Victoria Hospital. Soon after […]
FOR more than 40 years Linda and Anne Nolan have performed side by side on stage as members of iconic Irish girl group The Nolans.
But last month the sisters sat next to each other for a very different experience, as they endured a gruelling round of chemotherapy together at Blackpool’s Victoria Hospital.
Soon after returning home from filming their joyful hit TV series The Nolans Go Cruising, with their bandmate sisters Coleen and Maureen in March, Linda and Anne both received devastating cancer diagnoses within days of each other.
Relying on the Nolans’ trademark humour, Linda recalls the moment the sisters told their siblings.
She says: “We laughed and we cried really. It’s hysterical.
“Forget the Chemical Brothers, we’ve become the Chemo Sisters.”
Today the pop star duo bravely show the world how the harrowing treatment has caused them to lose their famous big hair.
But both have vowed to beat their cancer, a disease they have both had to confront before and that tragically killed their sister Bernie in 2013.
Anne, the eldest Nolan sister at 69, is mum to Amy, 39, and Alex, 32, and grandma to Amy’s son Ryder, eight, and Alex’s children Vinny, ten, and five-year-old Nevaeh.
Through tears she says: “I don’t want to die.
“I love my life so much.
“I love my daughters, my grandchildren, my friends, all my family.
“I want to live for as long as I possibly can.
“I am scared of dying as well.
“Even though I believe in God, I’m still scared.”
An equally emotional Linda, 61, who never had children, agrees.
She sobbed: “It’s just really hard and I’m scared of dying. I don’t want to die.
“I want to be around and see my great nieces and nephews grow up, and that’s why I’m putting everything I’ve got into trying to get well.”
Linda’s incurable cancer is in her liver, her third recurrence following breast cancer in 2006, cellulitis and lymphoedema in her arm in 2007 and secondary cancer on her pelvis in 2017.
She says of their diagnoses: “I thought my scans would just be fine as they normally are.
“On May 7 our sister Maureen called me at 10am to say that Anne’s breast cancer had been confirmed.
“Then half an hour later my oncologist’s secretary phoned me to say, ‘We need you to have an MRI scan because we’ve seen something on your liver’.
“I couldn’t tell anyone then because they were so obviously devastated about Anne.
“I thought, ‘I can’t turn around now and say, ‘Actually I’ve got it back as well’.”
Anne’s breast cancer is stage three, the most serious being stage four, and it is the second time she has had to fight the disease.
She says: “My first cancer was diagnosed in April 2000.
“I found my lump in April, so it was exactly 20 years on.”
The sisters pulled together in a way only the Nolans can, with Maureen moving in with Anne to look after her and Linda relocating to sister Denise’s house.
But Linda says: “I haven’t even given Anne a hug. Because now we’re frightened because our immune system is low that if we got something infectious or, God forbid, Covid, then it would be a real battle to stay alive.”
Both sisters are also seeing a psychologist to help them cope, with their plight made more difficult amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Anne, who is divorced from ex-footballer Brian Wilson, says: “I’ve had anxiety attacks. That’s got something to do with the pandemic.
“They say when you’re having chemotherapy you can pick up any kind of infection, it can be fatal. So I think that’s been playing on my mind as well.
“This has broken me down a bit, to be honest.
“And I think part of it is because I’ve not been able to see my daughters and grandchildren.
“I’ve not touched them, I’ve not been able to hug them or kiss them.
“And I think that’s what makes me more sad than anything.”
But the sisters — famous for such hits as I’m In The Mood For Dancing — have different perspectives on losing their hair.
Linda says: “It’s a difficult thing to say to people that, ‘Yes, I’ve got cancer but I’m traumatised about losing my hair’.
“How you look is part of showbiz and everybody gets labelled. I was blonde with the big boobs. So cancer has taken that away from me.
“First I had a mastectomy in 2006 and now my hair, and it’s just really hard.
“It’s just such a massive part of my identity as well. I’m sorry . . . I’m going to cry.” At that point, Linda starts sobbing uncontrollably.
She gathers her thoughts and adds: “I look in the mirror now and I see Bernie, because I think we’re so alike anyway and it just brings back all of her trauma and how sick she was.”
But for Anne, who started losing her hair after three rounds of chemo, there is not the same emotional attachment.
She says: “I had it all shaved off because I looked bald.
“I’m hoping it’ll come back, obviously. But if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. I’ll just go bald for the rest of my life.”
Their first chemo session together was on June 5 and Linda recalls: “It was really weird.
“We were sitting talking and they gave Anne one of her chemos and she had a bad reaction to one of the drugs.
“That was really scary because all of a sudden she couldn’t breathe properly. And I’m sitting there thinking, ‘My god, I’m next’.”
Anne’s chemo has been particularly difficult, and saw her end up in hospital for 11 days.
She says: “It’s really toxic chemo and it’s not been good.
“They were testing me for sepsis and Covid and everything. But all my results came back negative. So it was just the chemo that was making me ill.”
The sisters are both having six rounds of the treatment in total, with Anne one step ahead of Linda, who finishes hers on September 11.
From there, Linda will have scans to see if it has worked.
She says: “I’m just praying that it will and I can have palliative care.”
Anne will have either a mastectomy or lumpectomy, most likely followed by radiotherapy.
“I’ll just take the doctor’s advice on all that. I’m really not bothered about my boobs,” she says with a shrug.
Linda was widowed in 2007 when her husband of 23 years, the Nolans’ former tour manager Brian Hudson, died from liver failure after battling cancer. But she hasn’t given up on finding love again.
“I am ready to live with cancer and maybe love with cancer and hopefully there’s somebody out there,” she says.
“I know Brian is up there going, ‘Oh go for it girl, I’ll be here waiting for you when the time comes but enjoy yourself’. I think that’s what he would want.”
Linda has had a chance to acknowledge that she will likely be living with cancer permanently.
She says: “I’ve had it since 2006 and I’m still here and I was able to go back out and do shows with the girls and live a practically normal life.
“I have arthritis in all of my joints now so that can be a bit of hard work.
“But I’m still here and part of a great family that I love very much and I’m going to fight as much as I can to stay around and be with them.”
She has asked doctors about her life expectancy, and says: “As long as the treatment is there and I can have it and I respond well to it I might be around for another 15, 20 years, hopefully.
“By that time I’ll be an old woman. I’ll be 75 in 15 years, and I would’ve had a great life. So that’s why I’m again, for the third time, going to give it everything I’ve got.”
For Anne, there is still hope of a full cure.
She says: “The cancer hasn’t metastasised, it’s just contained in the breast. That was an amazing thing to hear really.
“I keep telling myself the chemo is horrible, but hopefully it’s doing its job.
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“And it’s not a case of being brave. I’m not brave. I haven’t been brave at all — I’ve been crying and probably stressing my sisters and my daughters.
“So I’m not brave. I just haven’t got any choice.
“Either I do it, take chemo, or face the consequences.”
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