Coronation Street actress Katie McGlynn has opened up about her heartbreak over her grandfather's death from prostate cancer.
The soap star, who played Sinead Tinker on the ITV soap from 2013 until 2019, revealed that her grandfather Denis had desperately wanted her to be on Corrie.
Sadly, he died just two weeks before she was given an audition for the soap.
Appearing on Lorraine today, Katie spoke about her grandfather and how happy he would have been to see her acting on Corrie.
She said: "Sadly, I left Waterloo Road in September and I did a pantomime and he passed away just shortly before his 70th birthday in February,’ Katie revealed.
"Not lying, two weeks after, I got the audition for Coronation Street, the very first audition that I had.
"And then, seven years later, I had the opportunity to do a story on cancer and I was adamant I wanted to do the full story because it meant a lot to me."
Katie continued to explain that her granddad was the "driving force" of her career and that he had been the one to take her to drama classes every week.
Opening up about his symptoms, she said: "He had issues going to the toilet in the night and he just didn’t say anything.
"He did have a lot of pain in his bones, so we thought it was arthritis, so we kept taking him to the doctor, and the doctor was adamant it was arthritis."
According to the NHS website, the most common symptoms of prostate cancer include needing to pee more frequently, needing to rush to the toilet, difficulty in starting to pee, feeling that your bladder has not emptied fully, weak flow and blood in urine and/or semen.
Signs that the cancer may have spread include back and bone pain, a loss of appetite, pain in the testicles and unintentional weight loss.
Currently, there isn't a screening programme for prostate cancer in the UK.
"I was shocked to hear it is the most common cancer that doesn’t have an effective screening cancer," Katie said. "We want to raise awareness about it, get men talking, get women talking and families and push these men to be aware of the risks and know their bodies so they can try and do something about it."
*Lorraine airs weekdays at 9am on ITV
