Delta Goodrem recalls 'shock' at cancer diagnosis


Delta Goodrem felt like "a bomb had gone off" when she battled cancer.
The 35-year-old singer-and-actress was just 18 years old when she was told she had Hodgkin's lymphoma and she recalled how she "shook uncontrollably for 24 hours" after the news was broken to her.
Speaking to WHO magazine's Most Beautiful People 2020 issue, she said: "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. The world as I knew it had completely changed."
When she went into remission from the disease, it took Delta some time to get her life back together.
She recalled: "It was as if a bomb has gone off and you have to put all the pieces back together.
"My body had just gone through a battle and it hurt.
"It took a much longer time to get back to the 'you can take on the world' feeling."
The former 'Neighbours' star lost her hair after undergoing chemotherapy and found the changes to her physical appearance "confronting" and she struggled to "feel good" about herself.
She said: "It's confronting when you're losing your hair and it's falling into your hands and it's confronting to lose part of your identity, but at the same time, hair does grow back,
"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.
"I had the understanding that this was all part of the journey, but it didn't make it any easier to go out of the house."
On occasions when she did go out during treatment, Delta would go to a local cafe with her mother.
She said: "That was as much as I could do after two weeks of treatment. I would have one day before I would have to go back to the hospital, and I would go have a hot chocolate with my mum."