RTE star Cathy Halloran was diagnosed with cancer just six months after her partner
Cathy Halloran has opened up about being diagnosed with breast cancer last year - just six months after her partner Nicky was also diagnosed with cancer.
The former RTE News mid-west correspondent revealed that she was diagnosed in March 2024. Thankfully, both Cathy and Nicky have been given the all-clear and have positive prognoses.
After 38 years with RTE, Cathy announced back in April that she would be retiring this month, with her final broadcast taking place last Friday, RSVP Live reports.
The Dubliner said: "If you are diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, it focuses the mind.
"I feel good now. I don't feel 64, more like early 50s. And apart from the cancer diagnosis, I've been healthy.
"Time is the most precious thing and with my leaving of RTÉ, I'm no longer tied to the tyranny of time, deadline after deadline. Now it's time to set my own deadlines."
Speaking to the RTE Guide, Cathy revealed she was hesitant to tell her son John Michael about her diagnosis.
"The biggest challenge was do I tell John Michael?" she said. "He started college in 2023, Nicky got cancer that October and within six months cancer had visited us both. So, with John Michael, I decided to wait until I knew more: I didn't want to burst his bubble. But he was wondering why I had been up and down to Cork. I eventually told him then about the cancer diagnosis and the visits to BreastCheck.
"He just asked me: "Mum, will you get better?' And I said: 'Absolutely!" He didn't ask me any more questions. So that's my cancer story. But I was determined to go back to work, and I did in May 2024, just in time for the Limerick mayoral election and local elections. In many ways work was therapy for me."
John Michael is 20, with Cathy welcoming him in her 40s.
"I was 43 when I had John Michael,' she said. "I waited so long for him and then, the next thing, he arrived. Right through my 30s I wanted to have a child, but I was also so happy with my nieces and nephews. And the next thing, didn't it happen!"
She has plans to travel, and teased that maybe a book could be in her future someday. "People say to me that there's a book in me. I've thought about it," she said.
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