Roger O’Donnell, the longtime keyboardist of The Cure, has taken the opportunity to start Blood Cancer Awareness Month – every September – to spread awareness of the importance of getting tested early if you feel concerning symptoms by detailing his recent experience with cancer.
Last September, O’Donnell was diagnosed with a “very rare and aggressive” form of lymphoma. Revealing that he “ignored the symptoms for a few months,” O’Donnell eventually had a scan, surgery, and a “devastating” biopsy result.
The musician underwent 11 months of treatment “under some of the finest specialists in the world” and gained “second opinions and advice from the teams that had developed the drugs I was being given.”
His post on social media, shared yesterday (1 September), continued: “I 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.”
Adding that he’s “fine and the prognosis is amazing,” O’Donnell wrote, “Cancer CAN be beaten, but if you are diagnosed early enough, you stand a way better chance, 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.
“Lastly if you know someone who is ill or suffering talk to them, every single word helps, believe me I know. I would also like to thank my Drs, rockstars everyone of them, all the nurses and technicians, my friends, family and my partner Mimi, sometimes its harder to be on the other side of this…..”
You can view O’Donnell’s post below.
In October 2022, The Cure performed the new songs Alone and Endsong for the first time. Next month, the goth rock icons will officially release their first new music in 16 years, dropping the singles, And Nothing Is Forever and I Can Never Say Goodbye on eco-vinyl on Tuesday, 1 October.
The songs will be shared as part of a release called Novembre: Live In France 2022. And Nothing Is Forever was recorded at Sud de France Arena, Montpellier, on Tuesday, 8 November 2022. I Can Never Say Goodbye was recorded five days later at the Zénith Toulouse Métropole. You can pre-order the vinyl here.
