Singer and festive hitmaker Noddy Holder has provided fans with an update on his cancer journey since doctors initially feared he had just months to live.
The Slade legend, now 78, revealed that despite a grim prognosis five years back, continual medical supervision has kept him in the fight against the disease.
The voice behind the 1973 festive anthem ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ shared with Sky News: “I did have oesophageal cancer and that was five years ago and, at the moment, they’re still keeping a check on me. I’m on a level playing field at the moment after at the time being diagnosed with six months to live.”
He continued, offering a positive note saying, “So I’ve lasted the course, as it were.”
Noddy previously expressed that upon learning of his limited lifespan, his greatest concern was for his loved ones. He underwent an innovative chemotherapy treatment, untested on those above 60.
Reflecting on the dire moments following his diagnosis, Noddy recounted: “I was more worried for my family, how they were going to react, than I was for myself really. I went eventually to The Christie hospital in Manchester and I said, ‘Well is it six months? Is that it? Is that the end of the line?'”, reports Devon Live.
“And they said, ‘Well, the only option you’ve got is an experimental treatment that we’ve never ever tried before, we’ve had some success over the past 12 months with it, but we’ve never tried it on anyone over 60’… because it was very, very hard going.”
“He said, ‘But your positive outlook and your mind could help you, and are you willing to take the trial on? ‘ and I said, ‘Well, what choice have I got really? …’ and I tried it, it was hard going, very hard going, but five years later I’m still standing.”
Holder admitted that he kept his cancer battle under wraps for half a decade because he “didn’t want the attention.”
“I wanted to deal with it in my own way,” he explained.
In a heartfelt column for Cheshire Life magazine, Mrs Holder opened up about her husband’s ordeal, praising his “with amazing good humour and breath-taking bravery”. She recounted how she nearly climbed the walls during medical appointments with Holder.
“I found there was one moment where I was trying to get out of the room vertically,” she disclosed. “It was unbelievable. I did fall apart. I got out of the room to fall apart, but unfortunately, you (Holder) knew that’s what was happening.”
She continued, “I pulled myself together as quickly as possible, and I’ve been with him to every single appointment he’s ever had and obviously we’ve gone through all of that together.”
Mrs Holder also shared the grim reality they faced in consultations: “There’s lots of moments in rooms, small windowless rooms of people just shaking their heads going, ‘I’m really sorry, but there’s nothing’, and that’s what we were told. So for him now to be here five years later is incredible, is not where we thought we were going to be but it’s brilliant.”
Before 1992, Holder, who hails from Walsall, was the lead vocalist of the rock band Slade, famous for their hit singles such as Merry Xmas Everybody, My Oh My and Far Far Away.