Coleen Nolan opened up out about her sister Bernie's incurable cancer battle on Tuesday.Speaking in an emotional interview with Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby on This Morning, the Irish singer and TV presenter, 48, revealed that her sister's fighting spirit continues despite her deteriorating health.
Bernie "has this incredible spirit always - every day now is like a bonus is some ways and in other ways we're all in limbo," said Coleen. "Her mental strength just amazes me.
"She's fighting it every single day and she fights it better than any of us fight it, she's been the one that's been strong for all of us. "The former lead vocalist of The Nolans was given the all-clear by doctors two years ago after she battled breast cancer. Sadly, the cancer returned last April and is now incurable.
Coleen described how her sister didn't come into the public domain immediately because, even now, she is thinking of others: "She felt she's let the women that she'd been strong for, she felt that 'I'm going to let them down because it's come back, and I don't want them to give up now thinking it's happened to me.'"
Talking about her sister Bernie, who she wished could have been on the show herself, Coleen explained that the biggest blow to her was when she had to stop singing. "She was working right up until last Christmas and touring in plays and pantomime - she just never stopped working, it wasn't going to get her, adding, "And then she got this cough and started to lose her voice and eventually they said you're not going to sing again. "And that was the first moment I felt it, because Bernie lives for singing, still lives for singing, and I think that was the biggest blow to her above everything else. "The Nolans star is the third of the six Nolan sisters to be touched by cancer. Linda and Anne had both previously been diagnosed and successfully recovered.
Bernie recently spent time in a hospice before deciding to go home. Coleen said "...four weeks down the line, typical Bernie said 'right, I want to go home now'".There, she will be able to be with her daughter Erin, 14, and the "love of her life", her husband Steve, to whom she pays tribute in her touching book Now and Forever.
