Linda Nolan says her incurable cancer diagnosis is "ironic" because she didn’t want to live for a long time after her husband died.
The 58-year-old singer was recently diagnosed with secondary breast cancer after doctors found a cyst on her pelvis when she fell and broke her hip earlier this month and although she considered suicide after Brian passed away in 2007, she has found a love for life again.
She told the Daily Mirror: "Oh, believe me I can see the irony.
"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.
"I was diagnosed with complex grief. 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. Now I’m so glad I didn’t do it."
And she is determined to fight her disease.
She said: "I am really scared.
"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 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.
"Some people with secondary breast cancer can live for five, 10, 20 years. And that’s what I want to do.
"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 Nolan opens up about cancer diagnosis
