Speaking to EVOKE as her new book (her 20th book), "Together For Christmas", hit shelves, Emma revealed that she initially wrote off her symptoms, and "didn't really think" because she "looked fine".
"I had a few symptoms and I didn't really think of them together; so I was having very severe dizzy spells, I also had pressure on my chest bone, like a ticking sensation, and I was very tired; more tired than usual, but I looked as normal," she told us.
"It was a dizzy spell that brought me to the hospital," Emma recounted. "And I'd been there quite a few times over a 12-month period having scans and investigations, but I couldn't get any answers until February '24.
"I went in again, this time for a brain scan, and this time the doctor looked at the skull bone rather than just the brain and spotted what's known as a bone lesion and that alerted her. She did bloods that day and within a few weeks, after several more tests, I was diagnosed with multiple myeloma.
"That's why my bones were weakened. So, it turned out that my sternum was actually fractured, and I had lesions in both shoulders, in my spine, in my neck, my skull, obviously, so yeah, it was quite advanced."
Emma recounted the diagnosis as "terrifying", especially "knowing that I had to break the news to my family". Then, she was told it was incurable.
"How do you even begin to process that?," Emma said. "So it was just about taking each day at a time and getting through the treatment and hoping that it worked.
"I had six months of chemotherapy and then I had a stem cell transplant; this time two years ago I was admitted to hospital in Belfast for that and I was in isolation for four weeks, no visitors and lost my hair and the stem cell transplant was very, very tough.
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"Multiple myeloma is a relapsing-remitting cancer, so it never actually goes away, but the medication can keep it under control until basically it outsmarts the medication and comes back, so I'm on medication now to maintain that.
"I'm monitored every three months, and I have bone-strengthening treatment every three months, as well as blood checks and scans, and I just keep a good eye on it because, unfortunately, it's going to return someday."
Emma has four children and is stepmum to her fiancé's son. Each of the five children is at a different stage in life and has different needs that need to be met with different approaches. So, how did she go about sharing the difficult news of her diagnosis with her family?
"I just couldn't tell them, I was just so afraid of telling them and afraid of how they would react, so, my fiancé, Jim, he did all the heavy lifting there and he told the five of them," she admitted.
"He also told my Dad, that wasn't easy for him, but I just couldn't find the energy and the strength to tell them because that was my biggest hurdle or fear of how we're going to give the news to them, but he was able to do that, thankfully.
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"They were devastated, there were tears obviously and shock and fear and all the rest, but within a very short space of time, they all stepped up and defined a role; and I think if people in that situation have some sort of a purpose or a role to play, that they feel it's helping, I think that makes it a wee bit easier.
"The youngest in the house, he was only 10, he turned 10 the day I was admitted to hospital,' Emma remembered. 'That was different, it was very, very tough on him, and he had to process it in a different way than the older ones.
"But again, he was brave and he asked a lot of questions, and we were told by different charities and people who helped us at the time to be as honest as we could with him, don't be shying away because he said the best thing is to be honest with young children," Emma said.
"But again, I just couldn't do that, like I tried to go round about it and you know, I said to him apart from the 'C' word, I just couldn't say that to him, but he was clever enough, he knew what was going on then and his big brothers and sisters really did rally around him and made sure he kept his routine and that he was well looked after and distracted and entertained.
"And [my fiancé's] family was great to him as well that time while I was in hospital, so we all just had to lock in and stick together and get through it."
* This article was originally published on Evoke.ie.
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