Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
I’m going to party for my final few months... and get revenge on those who wronged me
LINDA NOLAN ON WHY SHE WILL NEVER HAVE CHEMO
CANCER-STRICKEN Linda Nolan will turn down chemotherapy so she can live the last months of her life pain-free – after seeing the agony sister Bernie went through.
Linda was diagnosed as incurable a year ago this week and has no idea how long her illness will remain treatable.
Now she reveals she could not bear the same ordeal her sister faced as she died of secondary breast cancer five years ago.
Yesterday in our sister paper the Daily Mirror, the 59-year-old singer told how she wants to live more than ever.
But she wants that life to be as enjoyable as possible, partying with friends and family, and even enjoying a little revenge on those who’ve wronged her.
“If the cancer spreads and they offer me chemotherapy to give me an extra few months, I would turn it down after what Bernie went through,” she said.
“She was a fighter, but the last couple of months of her life were really difficult. She was in terrible pain.
“I’d rather have a couple of months feeling OK instead of the chemo making me feel awful. I want to enjoy the last months of my life to the full.”
Linda – one of the six Nolan Sisters – first found a lump in her breast in 2005, and was told she had an aggressive stage three cancer.
After gruelling treatment she was given the all-clear a year later, but 12 months ago she was told the disease was back and she had secondary cancer in her hip. The same condition claimed 52-year-old Bernie’s life in 2013 after it spread to her lungs, liver and brain.
SCARED
Recalling the final two weeks she spent at Bernie’s bedside with sisters Anne, 67, Denise, 65, Maureen, 63, and 52-year-old Coleen, Linda’s memories include the morphine she helped give her and the hiss of Bernie’s oxygen tank.
They have helped Linda decide on a ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ order, so doctors will not revive her if her heart stops.
“That is a terrifying thought,” she said. “I am scared of dying, but I am drawing my strength from Bernie every day. We’re all going to die but to hear your life is shortened is unbearable.
“We thought Bernie would be here until she was 90, still dancing around like the party animal she was, but then you realise that can be snatched from you so quickly.”
Her sister’s enduring spirit has given Linda the courage to face up squarely to her diagnosis – and her next hospital scan in March.
“Most people don’t have the opportunity to know they’ve only got a limited time left, so I’m determined to make the most of it,” she said. “As hard as it would be, I would definitely have a party.
“I would send out invitations saying ‘I don’t know how much longer I have left’ and it would be a chance to say goodbye.
“Not that I’m hell bent on revenge, but I’d also write to the people who have done me wrong over the years and let them know they’re not invited.
“I joked to my family before my birthday last month that I was tempted to have a massive celebration in case I don’t make my 60th next year. They brushed it off, but I don’t want to miss out on a party.” Despite Linda’s positive attitude, she admits she gets overcome by emotion when she thinks of those she will leave behind and the many milestones she will
miss. Linda, who has six grand-nephews and nieces, said: “My first thought when I was diagnosed was how I wasn’t going to see them grow up. There are times when I lie alone and cry, thinking of what I’m going to miss.
“I’m desperate to be here for their birthdays, their first boyfriends, their first heartbreak, their weddings. I lie awake at night and ask Bernie: ‘How did you do this? How did you live with it?’ She tells me to keep fighting and to not give in.”
Linda says she also talks to her late husband Brian Hudson, once the Nolans manager. He died at 60 of aggressive skin cancer in 2007 – only a year after Linda was first diagnosed with breast cancer.
She keeps his ashes next to her bed in her Blackpool home. “I can feel his presence,” she said. “And it’s like he’s there, physically putting his arms around me saying, ‘You’re going to be OK Lin’. I know I’ll see him again, as well as Bernie, my mum Maureen and dad Tommy. I hold on to that belief in the hard times.”
Linda has thought about how she would like her send-off to go. She wants
It’s like Brian’s physically there putting his arms around me. I know I’ll see him again LINDA ON THE COMFORT SHE GETS FROM HER DEAD HUSBAND
her funeral to be in the same Blackpool church where she married Brian and laid him to rest, and she wants the couple’s ashes to be scattered together in the crematorium rose garden.
She has also chosen her funeral songs as part of her final wishes she will write down for her family. “It sounds morbid but it makes it easier for the people left behind,” said Linda. “I would like There You’ll Be from Pearl Harbor, sung by Faith Hill. The words couldn’t be more fitting for the moment when I’ll meet Brian again and it’s the song we played at his funeral.
“And there’s a Neil Sedaka song too, Our Last Song Together. It’s beautiful and by then it really will be our last song with my wonderful family. I hope us remaining sisters will sing together one last time before I go.
Linda – whose new autobiography From The Heart is out now – also plans to write personal notes to her loved ones to read after her death. “They’ll be the hardest letters I’ve had to write, but there’s so much I want to say,” said Linda. “I also thought about getting jewellery for the little ones for them to remember their Auntie Lin. It’s ironic because there was a time in my life when I wanted to die because I wanted to be with Brian.
“I didn’t think that life had anything for me because I’d lost the man I loved. But now my determination to live is just so intense. I’m not particularly religious, but if I pray now it is to plead with God for just a little more time. But I’m not going to let cancer stop my life.
“I have to get on with it and appreciate all that’s happening, because I don’t know how long I’ve got left.”
antonia.paget@trinitymirror.com
From My Heart, by Linda Nolan, is published by Pan Macmillan on Thursday, £18.99.
There are times when I lie alone and cry thinking of what I’m going to miss LINDA ON THE HEARTBREAK OF KNOWING SHE IS GOING TO DIE