Paul Mescals Mom Calls Cancer a Gift

's mother Dearbhla has described her diagnosis as a 'gift' as she broke down in tears while opening up about her diagnosis and treatment. 

The Irish author was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer, four years ago when she was 53 years old. 

Now 57, Dearbhla is two years post stem cell transplant and is in remission. 

Having just released her book Finding Joy, she appeared on Davina McCall's podcast Begin Again last week as the mum of three revealed how cancer had allowed her to 'begin again'. 

Revealing how her diagnosis came when she was on the cusp of retiring, she said: 'I feel for me, the gift that [cancer] was for me was that I could begin again. 

'I could begin again. Literally hair gone. New hair is going to come back. And I was in stem cell treatment so my whole blood was being renewed.

'I was literally starting again, from my blood from scratch. I kind of said, "This is a serious gift." I had to re-engage with myself.'

She continued: 'I didn't grieve cancer. I still to this day when I talk about my 50s, I believe cancer was gifted to me and I and I do see it like that which I know sounds ridiculous, but it stopped me in my tracks. 

'It made me refocus. It made me grateful for my body, it made me grateful to be able to hold my skin, to inject it, to to embrace my belly.'

Dearbhla first realised something was wrong when she got a pain in her arm. She then she began getting sick.

'My immune system was breaking down. I was catching everything and very sick. I knew that this was more than a tired mum. 

'I was working full-time at the time, there was something wrong. There was something amiss.

'I remember thinking going to die and totally I didn't know I had what cancer I had but it was just that was where I went to I went to that the darkest place.'

After a trip away with her husband, also called Paul, during treatment, Dearbhla described how she fell in love with herself while climbing out of the sea. 

'This was me fully and completely me in my skin.... It was like I could see Dearbhla. I could see the whole woman who had been gifted three children who had fought with her the whole of my life. 

'The whole of my life like too big, too small. Well, I was never too small, but always too big and trying to fit into my uniform and I had a big uniform and I had a small uniform and it was always like kind of be good to be in the small uniform. 

'So this constant battle and suddenly this is the body that I was in battle with my whole life and I love her.

'So I fell in love with myself. That was the gift of cancer for me. I fell in love with her strength. I saw beyond the wrinkles, and I think there was huge joy in that. Huge huge joy in that.'

Paul previously admitted he had a panic attack on set when he found out his mother had been diagnosed with cancer.

The actor, now 30, was in the middle of shooting 'All of Us Strangers' with Andrew Scott, Claire Foy, and Jamie Bell and he struggled to cope with the news.

Speaking to Esquire UK, he explained: 'I think I kind of pushed it under the carpet for a bit when we found out.

Then there was a bad old day when we were setting up to do a shot and I had a panic attack, and I haven't had one of those in f****** years.

'That was probably the biggest one I've had, to be honest. It's embarrassing - not that I think they are embarrassing - but there was just something very public about it.

'I think I was like, 'I just don't have the space to feel anything now, and I'm probably feeling it in the work itself', but then there's only so much of that that's healthy. I think my body was like, 'No. You've got to feel something here that's your own'.'