Beverly Callard has given fans a “concerning” update after she had surgery for breast cancer, revealing it has spread to her lymph nodes.
The I’m A Celebrity star, 69, announced her early-stage diagnosis in February and had multiple lymph nodes removed as a precaution in surgery two weeks later.
Addressing fans in an Instagram video on Thursday, she said that the cancer was successfully removed but had spread.
The Coronation Street legend said that, after an agonising two-month wait for results, she was told her surgery “went really well” and they “cut the cancer out”.
“They're pleased with how the surgery went, and they also took three lymph nodes,” she explained.
“And this is how she explained it to me: the lymph nodes are like a staircase, and if cancer is in the lymph nodes, it sort of tends to climb up the stairs. That's oversimplifying it, but just to help explain.”
Callard - who appears in the current pre-recorded series of I’m A Celebrity All-Stars - went on: “They took three and cancer is in the first lymph node, it's not in the second, two and three. So it is there, but it's only small.”
The lymph node containing the cancer will be sent to the US to determine “how aggressive” the disease is. Callard will find out the results in several weeks.
“If it's aggressive, then I will have to undergo chemo first and then, after that, radiotherapy,” she said.
“If it's not aggressive, I will have the radiotherapy as was planned. So, I've just got to wait and see now again.”
Callard admitted she felt “worried” that the disease had spread to her lymph node.
”In one way, it was kind of good news that the surgeries worked well, which I'm really pleased about, but because it's in the lymph nodes, it's still a worry,” the soap star said.
“And still a waiting time, which is an absolute pain. But there we go, and I'm sure loads of you have been through the same thing. So that's the state of play.”
Callard was given her cancer diagnosis in January, with doctors breaking the devastating news to her just 20 minutes before she started her new job on Irish soap opera, Fair City.
She quit her iconic role as Rovers Return landlady Liz McDonald in 2019 after 30 years on screen.
Beverley told RTE's Late Late Show, hosted by Patrick Kielty: "I've had some tests just before I left the UK, and literally, 15, 20 minutes before I was in my dressing room at Fair City, getting ready to go on, and I was quite nervous and thinking, 'I hope everybody thinks I'm all right', whatever.
"And my consultant rang me and said, 'you've got to come back to the UK'. I said, 'Well, I can't possibly, I've just taken a new job'. I said 'I'm away for a month', and I was diagnosed with breast cancer."
Reassuring fans about her health battle, Beverley continued: "I'm fine, I'm absolutely fine. My head was a bit mashed for the first few days.
"It's very early stages, and I am along with thousands of other women as well.”
She began her new role as Gwen's long-lost mother Lily in Fair City at the start of the year with plans to move to County Wicklow with her husband.
