Linda Nolan has declared that she is not going “to be dying from cancer” but “living with it”.
Last week it was revealed she had been that told that she had cancer for a second time.
Doctors told Linda her disease was treatable but incurable.
“Some people with secondary breast cancer can live for five, ten, twenty years. And that’s what I want to do,” brave Linda has said.
“I’m not going to be dying from cancer, I’m going to be living with cancer if that’s what I have to do.”
Linda, who beat breast cancer in 2007, said that this time round she didn’t suffer any symptoms and was diagnosed only after she fell over and a routine scan revealed a growth on her hip bone.
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Although she is feeling strong and confident, she does admit that she can’t help but feel worried.
“I am really scared,” Linda told the Mirror.
“I don’t want to die. All my little nieces and nephews, my step-children and step-grandchildren, they are my life now because I never had children.
“And when they come in to the hospital to visit me, I think, ‘Oh my God, I wanted to see you get married or see you with your first boyfriend.’
“And I want to grow old with my family… There is so much I want to do. I have to be positive and make sure I do.”
Linda also opened up about the depression she suffered when she lost her husband Brian and considered taking her life.
“When I was down in my worst depression after my husband Brian died, all I wanted was to be with him.
“But slowly I was able to see there was so much to live for. Then all of a sudden, here I am and I could die and it is all out of my control.”
She explained; “Brian and I had been married 26 years and I’d known him 28 years.
“We were together 24/7 because he was my manager and he spoiled me to a fault.
“I just couldn’t cope without him. There seemed no future without Brian and one night I lined up all the tablets I could find and was ready to take them.
“It was then I phoned Samaritans. I was sat looking at the tablets and rang the number and said, ‘I just don’t know what to do.’
“I thought I’d no longer be a burden on my brothers and sisters and they’d be better off without me.”
But now looking back she knows she made the right decision and admits that “I’m so glad I didn’t do it.”
After that incident, Linda sought psychiatric help and was prescribed anti-depressants but still went through a stage of self-harming and needed counselling for seven years.
However, years on from losing Brian, she finds it hard not to think of him.
“I still miss Brian every day and I still cry about him some days but I can talk about him now without feeling devastated.
“And I can remember the happy times we had. I’ve often since sat with my brothers and sisters and all the children at birthdays and family occasions and thought, ‘If I’d done it I’d have missed all of this.’
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“Then a couple of years ago, just before Christmas, I’d decorated our lounge and put up a little tree with all the lights on it and I suddenly thought, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to be OK.’ I’d been through a really rubbish ten years, I’d grieved for my husband, my mum, my sister, my career, everything. But for the first time I thought, ‘I can do this now.’
“That’s why I have to try to be positive. I’ve learnt how much there is to live for.”