D’Unbelievables star Jon Kenny has revealed his shock cancer battle - as well as his heart failure diagnosis.
In 2000, at the height of his phenomenal success as one half of D'Unbelievables with Pat Shortt, Jon was successfully treated for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
But now the comedy actor has revealed he is currently undergoing chemotherapy after cancer was detected on his left lung last year.
READ MORE: Pat Shortt tells of worry for D'Unbelievables co-star Jon Kenny over cancer diagnosis
Jon revealed it is the second time cancer was found on his lung after it was operated on four years ago. Jon said: “I was diagnosed… the cancer came back. I had it there again. I had it about three years ago, four years ago so I had some operation to remove some of my left lung and that was good. Good luck to that.
“But didn’t the fecker come back again on my left lung again (last year). I’ve been lucky now because my chemo is working so I’ve been grand.” But Jon revealed in the middle of his treatment, he was also diagnosed with heart failure.
“But just in the middle of it all then, just for the craic of it, you know when you’re getting on with things and after I had my second chemo, didn’t I get told I had heart failure. Just to throw that in the mix like… a nice little cocktail of things to be getting on with.”
“I’m very lucky though. My heart function is back up again so there will be no possibility of me keeling over at my next three outings. “All is good,” he told Oliver Callan on his RTE Radio 1 show.
Jon is currently undergoing maintenance chemotherapy, which is a less intensive treatment sprawled out over longer periods of time.
He said: “I’m on what they call ‘maintenance’ at the moment. I suppose they don’t want it coming back. Things seem to be under control from what we can tell.
“I had to take time off because I physically wasn’t able to do anything between treating the cancer and my heart failure. I’m getting it once every three weeks, my maintenance. At least it’ll give me a couple of weeks of feeling better.”
The break between treatments means that Jon can continue working. He will perform in two shows of John B Keane's The Matchmaker in Bray and Limerick.
He'll also be performing some of his poetry for the first time alongside Donal Ryan as part of Limerick's poetry month in April. “It’s great to be able to do it. I miss it…. It’s what I do. It’s what I’ve done all my life.”
It has been a tough few years for the star after losing his brother Cormac at the beginning of Covid.
“My brother passed away at the beginning of Covid in London. The whole thing was crazy at the time. We managed to get him back home but we managed to get him home out of the hospice. All he wanted to do was pass away at home.
“So we got him home and he passed away less than 48 hours later.. that was all very traumatic.” Asked if he was able to be there to say his final goodbyes to Cormac, he added: “Yeah, just about. I was outside the door.”
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