Play School star Trisha Goddard has opened up about a secret health battle, telling fans of an incurable diagnosis she’s grappled with in private for 19 months.
The 66-year-old English television presenter – who hosted the popular Australian children’s show between 1987 and 1998 – has revealed her breast cancer has returned.
Goddard was first diagnosed with the disease in 2008, and has now said it’s metastasised to stage 4 and it’s terminal.
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”It’s not going to go away. And with that knowledge comes grief, and fear. But I must keep enjoying what I have always enjoyed,” Goddard told Hello! Magazine.
Goddard told the magazine she first received her terminal diagnosis 19 months ago, and was sharing the news as her health was becoming increasingly hard to keep a secret.
“I can’t lie. I can’t keep making up stories,” she told the outlet.
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“It gets to a stage, after a year and a half, when keeping a secret becomes more of a burden than anything else,” she continued.
Goddard, who is a correspondent with CNN, said she didn’t want people to change their perception of her now that she’d shared her diagnosis publicly.
“My worry is that people will start seeing me as a frail little thing, and that if (the news) got out, I’d be judged, or people would change the way they are with me, or that I wouldn’t work,” Goddard said.
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“I’m a journalist. I don’t want to be ‘the story’. I don’t want to be interviewing someone and for them to say to me: ‘I’m so sorry’,” she said.
Goddard also took to social media with the news, sharing a photo of the magazine cover – which shows her new shortened hairstyle – to Instagram.
“Doing this is tough. ..I’ve been keeping a difficult secret for 19 months now, but like my new hairstyle – I can’t hide it anymore,” she wrote to her 63,000 followers.