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I'll scan it tomorrow, but for now, I'll type it up.
A crippling disease made Delta lose her hair, eyelashes, and confidence...how Nick's love saved her life
At age 18, pop singer Delta Goodrem had the number one album and single in her home country of Australia and was on her way to becoming an international superstar. But instead of fighting her way up the charts, she found herself fighting for her life after discovering a dangerous lump in her throat.
While Delta was doing sit-ups one day in July 2003, she suddenly felt something pop in her neck. "I reached down and I felt a small lump at the base of my throat," Delta says. "It wasn't sore, it wasn't visible, but I could feel it."
That little lump turned out to be a sign of Hodgkin's lymphoma, a type of life-threatening cancer that weakens the immune system. Over the next few months, Delta's health and confidence quickly plummeted as the treatents that worked to save her life also made her body look "sallow" and "skeletal." Even worse, the rounds of chemotherapy and radiation made her lose her hair. "I only had little tufts of hair left, which were going grey," Delta says. "I had no eyelashes or eyebrows...I felt very unattractive."
After a year-long battle, Delta was able to beat the disease - but even though her body recovered, she was changed forever.
Finding strength in Nick
Delta was left with the constant fear that cancer could come back at any moment and take over her life again. But when she met Nick Jonas while recording music in LA this March, all of the doubts that she had been harboring finally melted away. Nick knows what it's like to live with health issues that make the future uncertain. "I didn't now if I was going to die," Nick says of being diagnosed with diabetes at age 13.
With Nick, Delta finally found someone she could lean on who understood her pain and her new outlook on life. And just as Nick hoped to "inspire people" with his Change for the Children Foundation, Delta created her own charity tied to her illness called The Delta Goodrem Leukemia and Lymphoma Trust Fund. "Having survived, I feel it is my responsibility to live my life to the fullest and give others hope," Delta says.
Despite their eight-year age gap, Nick and Delta's mutual struggles and shared dreams of helping others have made their love for rach other - and their second chance at life - grown stronger than ever. "I'm one of the lucky ones," Delta says. "I'm just really blessed," Nick echoed.
Edited by x_LastNightOnEarth_x, 10 August 2011 - 12:49 PM.
