“I am fine and the prognosis is amazing,” he wrote at the start of Leukemia Awareness Month. “The mad killer knocked on the door and we didn’t answer.”
Veteran The Cure keyboardist Roger O'Donnell revealed on Saturday that he has spent the past year battling a “very rare and aggressive form of lymphoma”, but added that he is now “well and the prognosis is amazing”.
The musician announced his health condition on social media to coincide with Leukemia Awareness Month in September, which comes a year after O'Donnell was diagnosed in September 2023.
“I ignored the symptoms for months but eventually went away and after surgery the biopsy result was devastating,” O’Donnell wrote.
“I have now completed 11 months of treatment under the supervision of some of the best specialists in the world and with the input and advice of the teams that developed the drugs I was taking. I have benefited from the latest science fiction immunotherapy and some drugs that were first used 100 years ago. The final stage of treatment was radiotherapy which was also one of the first treatments developed against cancer.”
O'Donnell — who joined the band in 1987, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the band in 2019, and performed live on the band's North American tour last year before then-unspecified “health reasons” forced him to miss the band's Latin American tour in November 2023 — opened up about his battle with cancer in an effort to encourage fans to get tested.
“Cancer can be beaten, but if you get diagnosed early enough, your chances of being cured are much better, so all I want to say is go get tested, if you have any idea you might have symptoms, go get tested,” O’Donnell wrote.
“I'm fine and the outlook is amazing. The crazy killer knocked on the door and we didn't answer.”
