Coleen Nolan took to social media with a special message for her "strong" sister Linda who celebrated her 65th birthday on Friday.
The pair were pictured looking absolutely beautiful in an image shared to Coleen's Instagram account which showed the sister-duo beaming for the camera. Coleen and Linda both donned glittery jackets with all-black outfits underneath.
Alongside the photo, Coleen penned: "Happy Birthday to my beautiful sister.. 65 today and still going strong.. I love you ALWAYS [red love heart emoji]."
Linda is currently undergoing treatment for cancer and has been bravely sharing awareness for the disease. She was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006, which she got the all-clear from in 2011. However, in 2017, she discovered she had secondary breast cancer that had spread to her hip, before further spreading to her liver in 2020. In March 2023, she shared the news that the cancer had spread to her brain.
© Getty ImagesIn December, she sat down with Ben Shepherd and Susanna Reid to share the incredible news that her tumours had shrunk after fearing "she wouldn't make it to Christmas".
She said: "It's amazing… When we went in, I knew straight away that it was good news by the look on my consultant’s face. He said that the scans were good – the MRI and the CT scan – and that there is shrinkage with the tumours. I wanted to put my arms around him and kiss him but I thought they might throw me out."
She added: "I didn't think I’d make Christmas. I was hoping to make the birth of my nephew, who was born at the end of July, and then I was thinking, 'How many more milestones will I make?'
"And at the moment, I feel good. I’ve got a little bit of pain but I was walking about yesterday; we went to the beautiful garden centre and I was having a walk around to keep moving. They said, 'Don’t sit down all the time or nothing will work', and I just looked and thought, 'How lucky I am.'"
Sadly cancer has occurred several times for the Nolan sisters. Anne Nolan, 73, was the first to be diagnosed with breast cancer back in 2000. Linda, 64, was diagnosed five years later and Bernie, who sadly died in 2013, was diagnosed in 2010.
Last year, Coleen revealed she was diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma on her shoulder and melanoma on her face but revealed on Loose Women that she felt "embarrassed" to open up about it.
One reason she was not keen to talk about it was because she felt it seemed minor in comparison with her sister's breast cancer diagnosis. She also revealed she chose not to undergo elective surgery to prevent developing the disease.
"I looked into elective surgery at one point because I didn’t want to live waiting for the phone call. But Linda talked me out of it, funnily enough. She said, 'I don’t want you to do it because it's a really big operation.'"
The Nolan sisters do not carry the BRCA1 or BRCA2 cancer genes, which is why Coleen ultimately decided against it.
