Delta Goodrem speaks candidly about battling cancer at the tender age of 18

Delta Goodrem has spoken candidly about her past battle with cancer, in WHO Magazine’s Most Beautiful People 2020 issue.

The 35-year-old posed up for the publication and said that her world turned upside down when she was first diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma at the tender age of 18.

The Australian singer was diagnosed back in July 2003, and said that it felt like ‘a bomb had gone off.’   

Delta said that when she was first heard she had the disease, her body went into complete ‘shock’ and she ‘shook uncontrollably for 24 hours.’

‘I remember that when I was first told I had cancer, my body went into shock and I shook uncontrollably for the next 24 hours,’ Delta told the publication. 

Delta lost her hair while getting chemotherapy and she said the changes in her physical appearance were ‘confronting.’

‘It was very hard to feel beautiful in an external sense – my skin colour had a green tinge to it, there was a lot of steroid effects and it was hard to feel good,’ Delta said. 

She added that going through remission was just as tough, saying: ‘It was as if a bomb has gone off and you have to put all the pieces back together.’

After beating the cancer, Delta said that health is her main priority.

In the photoshoot for WHO, Delta stuns in a chic white suit.

She sits on the floor and gazes at the camera, with her short locks out in loose tousled curls. 

Delta- who is known for hits including Innocent Eyes and Mistaken Identity – went through a year of treatment.

It included eight months of chemotherapy and two months of radiotherapy. 

She has long been open about her battle with the blood disease and has previously said that she ‘lost her innocence to cancer.’

‘The world became darker,’ she has said about her cancer battle.  

Hodgkin’s is a cancer of the lymphatic system that carries white blood cells throughout the body to fight infection. It usually affects groups of lymph nodes.

The lymph nodes in the neck are the most common site of cancerous tumours in Hodgkin’s, but they can also be found in the armpit, chest, groin and abdomen.

The cancer can spread through the body via the lymphatic system and affect the bones and organs such as the liver, lungs and spleen.

Delta had the tell-tale signs of the disease for nine months before she was diagnosed. These included a lump in her neck, which grew to the size of a large plum, night sweats, exhaustion and unexplained weight loss.