Linda and Anne Nolan have admitted that the fear of cancer returning always lives with them.
Anne, 70, and Linda, 62, spoke out during a chat with Jess Boulton on the Daily Mirror’s Facebook on Friday, in a special episode of Jess Saying.
Linda had been fighting secondary breast cancer since 2017 and was told by doctors that she had incurable cancer that spread to her liver after she was first diagnosed in 2006.
Anne was told that her breast cancer returned after being first diagnosed in 2000.
Answering questions from fans during the interview, Anne admitted that the fear of cancer is always with you.
She said: "You do live with it for a few years - if you feel ill or anything at all you think, oh gosh, it's the cancer coming back.
"Eventually that feeling fades away and you don't think that all the time. Eventually it does leave your head."
'Chemo sister' Linda agreed and added: "The thing is that if you are worried, your GP is still there for you. At Blackpool [where the Nolans were performing] my cancer nurse was there and I would phone her and I would just say.
"When I had a mastectomy in 2006, for two months I could feel a lump in where they had taken my breast and there was no breast there and I thought, oh god it's growing back and I phoned her and she said 'don't worry, it's scar tissue'.
"What I mean is that it's inside your head all the time."
The two have been supporting each other through the difficult time, with Anne admitting having her sister by her side “helped a lot.”
“I was joined by Linda in my second chemotherapy session. Having her with me helped a lot. She brought magazines in and we’d look at them together and natter,” she recently told the Mirror.
“She was two metres from me, but we could still hear each other speak, and it was nice having a loved one nearby.
“She passed me sweets and she’d bring scones and we would swap food with each other like kids in school, depending on what our sisters Denise and Maureen had conjured up for our lunchboxes.”
Having lost sister Bernie to cancer aged 52 in 2013, they’ve been through health battles, divorces, losses and feuds.
Linda and Anne recently released their book, Stronger Together, where they dive into the fear they feel as they battle cancer.
Anne discussed her fear of dying in the new book, as well as the anxiety that bubbles due to the coronavirus pandemic.
"I've actually got a physiologist, recommended by my doctor, to talk to about these things,” she penned.
"When she asked me what worries me I said 'well I'm fighting to stay alive. I don't want to die.'
"But I think that's because of the cancer; I've always worried about dying but having cancer makes me think about it and worry about dying much more than I ordinarily would."
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