‘Cancer drives into your life like a truck’ – author Cathy Kelly on her diagnosis

The bestselling writer tells of finding a lump in her breast, going through chemo, losing her hair and remaining positive

Cathy Kelly opens up for the first time about her cancer

Niamh Horan

It took Cathy Kelly two days to cry after her breast cancer was diagnosed, because she was too busy telling the people closest to her that everything was going to be all right. “Nothing to see here. That was my way of coping,” she says.

But then the dam burst as the bestselling author sat with her dogs at home in Co Wicklow, otherwise alone with her thoughts. And straight away her head was swirling with dread and fear about what might lay ahead.