Longtime The Cure keyboardist Roger O’Donnell is opening up about his battle with blood cancer in recognition of September being Blood Cancer Awareness Month.
“In September last year I was diagnosed with a very rare and aggressive form of lymphoma,” O’Donnell reveals in a social media thread. “I had ignored the symptoms for a few months but finally went … and after surgery the result of the biopsy was devastating.”
O’Donnell adds that he’s “now completed 11 months of treatment under some of the finest specialists in the world and with second opinions and advice from the teams that had developed the drugs I was being given,” and “had the benefit of the latest sci fi immunotherapy and some drugs that were first used 100 years ago.”
“The last phase of treatment was radiotherapy which also was one of the first treatments developed against cancer,” he writes. “[I’m] fine and the prognosis is amazing.”
Reflecting on his cancer fight, O’Donnell declares, “The mad axe murderer knocked on the door and we [didn’t] answer.”
“Cancer CAN be beaten but if you are diagnosed early enough you stand a way better chance,” he continues. “So all I have to say is go GET TESTED, if you have the faintest thought you may have symptoms go and get checked out. If you know someone who is ill or suffering talk to them, every single word helps, believe me I know.”
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