Trisha Goddard, who has been living with cancer for 16 years, has explained how she initially didn't want to tell anyone about her diagnosis.
"For 19 months I didn't say anything to anybody," Trisha told Virgin Radio DJ Steve Denyer. "I wore my wig – I had a wig made exactly like my hair was before – and I went through the worst. The morning after my wedding, they started my radiation treatment."
Trisha – who is set to appear in the latest series of Celebrity Big Brother – was originally diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008 and after treatment doctors believed she was in remission. but in 2022, a second tumour was discovered in her right hip bone and Trisha was told to expect the worst.
In an emotional statement she said: "It's not going to go away, and with that knowledge comes grief, and fear. But I must keep enjoying what I have always enjoyed."
Trisha underwent debilitating treatment for the cancer, but refused to stop working. She defiantly says "I'm not defined by cancer."
To slow the progress of the cancer, Trisha was prescribed "full strength" chemotherapy, which she wryly describes as "a bitch," but says one positive is that she shed quite a bit of weight as a result.
"I got very skinny very quickly, " she said, "but I don't recommend it go for Ozempic if you can." Along with her good-humoured attitude to the terminal diagnosis, Trisha is very philosophical about her condition: Once upon a time I thought I'd never make it up this hill, so what I'm saying is treat every bit of every hill as a bit of training for the next hill."
Trisha adds: "I don't want people to be sorry for me.I'm very fortunate that I have access to the health care I have."
She describes the side-effects of the chemo as "The new normal" as she lists them: "I had to learn how to walk again," Trisha says. "There's certain foods I can't eat because I don't have enough saliva to swallow, and I have to put cream on every every day because I get this awful rash from the drugs.
She says she also has limited function in her hands, for which he has acupuncture treatment and the chemotherapy has also affected her eyesight: "One eye muscle kind of went, so I see double. So I have to wear corrective glasses."
But Trisha remains upbeat: "I'll take every drug that they give me. I'm very fortunate," she stresses. "I grew up in East Africa – people die of a flipping common cold there you know!"
She says she's lucky to have grown up in a country where conditions like hers are treatable, if not entirely curable, and she adds that she's thankful to have "finally found a good husband" – her fourth - in 2022.
