Olivia Newton-John: I dismissed cancer symptoms as signs of ageing

Olivia Newton-John had dismissed the back pain caused by her cancer as just a sign of ageing, the Aussie singer has told Karl Stefanovic.

In an interview with the TV host screened by Channel Nine’s 60 Minutes on Sunday night, Newton-John said she was “used to just grimacing and working through it”, until the pain in her lower back because so bad that she had a scan of the area, which revealed a tumour in her sacrum.

Although she said that learning that she had cancer again, 20 years after first beating the disease, was “scary”, Newton-John was philosophical about her latest battle.

“I’ve had, and am having, an amazing life. So, I have no complaints, I really don’t,” she said. “Everyone goes through something, you know. We all have something we need to go through in life and this has been my challenge.”

The beloved singer has since been coing through both conventional and alternative treatments, and revealed that her husband John Easterling was growing the marijuana that she was using to treat the pain and inflammation caused by cancer.

“It’s what should be available for everybody to use,” she told Stefanovic.

In the peace of Gaia, @olivianj is so dignified in the face of adversity, so positive about her future. #60Mins pic.twitter.com/5ObFhPBO7H

— 60 Minutes Australia (@60Mins) September 10, 2017

And she said that the role of positive thinking was so important to her recovery that she had never asked her doctors about her long-term prognosis.

“You can read statistics and statistics will say so many years,” Newton-John explained. “[But] I don’t believe in that and I don’t read into that.  I’m just going to be healthy, and I’m going to work towards being healthy.”

She said she could currently walk, but not long distances, so was working toward being able to walk on the beach again, and to play tennis.

“There have been a lot of women who have had recurrences [of breast cancer] and continued on with their lives to be old ladies and that’s my vision,” the singer said.

Do you think positive thinking plays an important role in recovering from illness?