Coronation Street star Beverley Callard has continued to update fans on her journey as she bravely battles breast cancer.
The former cobbles star received her diagnosis earlier this year just after relocating to Dublin to star in Irish soap Fair City.
Beverley explained that she heard she had cancer ‘literally 15 to 20 minutes before’ she filmed her first scene for her new job, while she was waiting in her dressing room.
Announcing the news live on RTÉs The Late Late Show just weeks ago, she said: ‘I’d had some tests just before I left the UK. I was in my dressing room at Fair City, getting ready to go on, and I was quite nervous and thinking, ‘I hope everybody thinks I’m all right, and my consultant rang me and said, ‘You’ve got to come back to the UK.’
I said, ‘Well I can’t possibly, I’ve just taken a new job, I’m away for a month’.’
‘I was diagnosed with breast cancer. But I’m fine. I’m absolutely fine. My head was a bit mashed for the first few days. It’s very early stages, and I’m along with, thousands of other women as well.’
The actress flew back to the UK for surgery and radiation.
Having returned home a day later than anticipated to ‘minor complications’ with the surgery to remove lymph nodes, the actress behind Weatherfield matriarch Liz McDonald took to Instagram last week to talk about her experience, thanking the NHS staff that cared for her during her hospital stay and detailing the emotions she felt after the procedure.
‘I’m home. I was supposed to come home yesterday, but they decided to keep me in overnight. Minor complications,’ she began the video.
‘So I have been home for a couple of hours. I looked very pale, the nurses were calling me pale and passionate. I don’t know about passionate, but I am very pale,’ she joked.
‘I’m feeling okay. I had a bit of a cry as you do, but I am okay. Emotions are all over the place, you know which is you know… anyway, I won’t rant on about that. The staff at Norfolk And Norwich Hospital were truly amazing.’
The 68-year-old has now shared a subsequent update – on Wednesday (February 25) – after attending a hospital appointment earlier that day to have her dressings changed.
‘I knew they were going to tell me today if I had to have another operation,’ she explained in the clip, posted to her Instagram channels.
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‘The consultant called me in and she took the dressing off under my arm first. It’s quite a big hematoma and she doesn’t want to operate on it unless she has to but we’ve decided to delay that until next week because she thinks she might have to.’
The TV legend told her followers that when she was getting her dressings changed she looked down and saw herself for the first time and thought ‘I can’t do this’.
‘There’s a nurse there who is amazing called Jo, they said “are you okay?” and I said “yep I’m fine”. Lied, as we all do. She said “do you want to look at yourself in the mirror?”.
Beverley explained that didn’t feel like she could look at herself in the mirror right now, revealing she has another appointment next week.
The soap star went on to say that she broke down after leaving the hospital.
‘John was there waiting for meand I got in the car and cried my heart out like a baby. I wasn’t strong at all then – I’d lost the whole lot. But I’m sure we all go through that.
‘But then I did come home and I did look at myself and I did show John, so I did get through it in the end. If anyone else is going through that part right now then god love you, we can do this.’
Beverley has been keeping her fans up to date on social media since her diagnosis. Last week, she said explained how she felt immediately following the operation.
‘The first night, Friday, which was the day of the operation, I must say I was in great pain Friday night and I didn’t sleep at all, but today, first of all, I slept for 12 hours last night, which is unheard of for me!
‘So I had a really good sleep and I’m not in pain today at all. I’ve not taken any morphine today because I don’t react to it that well, it does make me feel a bit sick, but to be honest, I’ve not needed it.
‘Rather than being in pain, I’m more sore and I can cope with that, that’s fine. I’m black and blue and purple, which is not attractive, but I’m doing really well and I just wanted everybody to know that.
‘I have emotional moments but honestly I’m doing well I think mentally and physically I’m doing well and I will be in touch tomorrow.’
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