Sports presenter Mel McLaughlin has revealed she’s been diagnosed with lung cancer, the same disease she lost her big sister to a decade ago.
McLaughlin, 46, shared the news in a Seven News segment on Wednesday evening, saying she’d been on extended leave from her journalism role to quietly undergo lung cancer treatment for months.
The Australian journalist said she’d been diagnosed in December before going into surgery to have half her lung cut out.
“It’s very triggering. It’s a lot of emotions. Obviously you don’t want to worry anyone,” McLaughlin said in the segment.
For McLaughlin’s family, her diagnosis was an especially hard conversation to have considering the death of Mel’s big sister, Tara, to lung cancer, in 2015, at age 39. Tara had been a senior constable in the NSW Police Force and a mum of two boys before her diagnosis of a rare and aggressive ALK lung cancer, roughly two-and-a-half years before her death.
“I don’t want anyone to think that in our family, lung cancer meant death,” McLaughlin said in Wednesday’s interview. “We have one example, and we lost her.”
McLaughlin revealed she was treated for lung cancer in the same room of Sydney’s North Shore Private Hospital where her sister, Tara, had passed away.
“I cried, and then I laughed, and I was like this has to be a joke,” McLaughlin said about the tragic turn of events.
In the interview, McLaughlin also shared that she delayed her lung cancer surgery to host Melbourne’s Boxing Day Test and then Sydney’s Pink Test, in honour of Jane McGrath in January.
It was a day ahead of her operation, with McLaughlin helping raise awareness and money to fight cancer, while in between stints hosting the event, rushing to get last-minute blood tests.
“I did the pregame- I’ll be honest, I didn’t watch much cricket that day- I went out to a pathology centre, which was close. I then came back, did the lunch break. And then I had major surgery the next day. The intention was good. It probably sounds a bit crazy!” McLaughlin said.
Previous to her sports presenting at Channel Seven, McLaughlin began her career in radio before moving on to other journalism roles at Network 10, Fox Sports and Sky News.
Moving forward from lung cancer, McLaughlin shared she has three goals: to get better, to raise awareness, and to return to her work.
“Recovery is slow but good,” she said, adding that her doctors are happy with her progress and say that she was lucky to have caught the cancer early.
McLaughlin said the reason she wants to share her story is to make sure there’s awareness of the reality of lung cancer and get rid of any stigma surrounding the disease, including that it only affects people who smoke. Both McLaughlin and her sister were non-smokers.
After recovery, she said she’s determined to host the Commonwealth Games and the Rugby League World Cup.