Olivia Newton-John shares her advice for women with cancer

Olivia Newton-John was in town opening an exhibition of her memorabilia, including those Grease leather pants. She spoke about her most recent cancer battle.

When they heard Olivia Newton-John was coming to town, the IMAGE.ie team all perked up and more than one person could be heard humming Grease Lightning. Who needs an excuse really?

Olivia was in Ireland opening an exhibition of her memorabilia, including those Grease leather pants and Physical and Xanadu pieces, at the Newbridge Silverware Museum of Style Icons.

The exhibition is on display until Sunday, August 18, and in November, these items will go to auction. A portion of the proceeds raised will go to the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness & Research Centre, where the 70-year-old was treated for cancer last year.

She underwent radiation treatment and also treated the disease with natural therapies. Here she shares some of her advice for women dealing with cancer:

“Staying positive and believing I can get well is really important.”

“I’m still here. You have to believe you’ll still be here. You have to ignore the statistics.

You can make those a reality in your life. What you think is what you create, that’s your reality.

I choose not to believe them.

I’m very fortunate that I have a husband who’s a plant medicine man who helps me with herbs and medicinal cannabis, it’s been a huge part of my journey.

“Everyone’s going to be calling you and asking you how you are and how you feeling. It’s exhausting.”

I’ve had three bouts with cancer. I am living with it well, and I think I’m going to see an end of it. And that’s my dream, that it will be gone. I’ve mixed traditional medicine and herbal medicine and homoeopathic medicine and a lot of mind-body spiritual focus. Staying positive and believing I can get well is really important.

On a practical sense, I would say, don’t make your illness your life, because you need to live your life. Everyone’s going to be calling you and asking you how you are and how you feeling. It’s exhausting.

You need to choose a friend or family member to talk to everybody about how you are so you can live and enjoy your life and do something in that time that’s pleasurable for you, that makes you feel good.

The choices of your treatment is a very personal thing. I can’t tell anyone else what they should do.

I’d like to tell you all something that I did that people should know about. And that is last year, I broke my sacrum and I was in a lot of pain and in hospital. I was on morphine for the pain.

I weaned myself off morphine with cannabis and I just want people to know that that is possible and it’s not going to kill you. If we can start teaching people that cannabis can help keep the pain away and not kill you, that’s an important message to get out there.

I want to see an end to cancer in my lifetime. And in myself too, I want to see my daughter live a happy life and to see some grandchildren.”

The exhibition of Olivia Newton John’s memorabilia will be on display to the public free of charge at the Museum of Style Icons in Newbridge Silverware until Sunday, August 18.

Photography by Newbridge Silverware.

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