It was meant to be one of the happiest times in Georgia Love‘s life. After months of keeping the result of The Bachelorette a secret, her relationship with Lee could officially ‘start’ publicly, kicking off with many media interviews and appearances.
Instead, 24 hours after the finale aired, Love was in hospital with her family as her mother Belinda passed away from pancreatic cancer. She was 60 years old and had been diagnosed just six months before.
“It’s only got a seven per cent survival rate and there is no early detection. She had had abdominal pains for a few weeks, and she’s a nurse as well, which was probably a bad thing because she didn’t want to complain or step on anyone’s toes,” Love told Mia Freedman in the latest episode of No Filter.
Listen: The highs and lows of Georgia Love. Post continues after audio.
“She just thought she had a bit of a dairy intolerance, so she cut out dairy for a few weeks but it didn’t do anything. Then she cut out gluten, and again it didn’t make a difference, so she thought ‘Better go check it out as I’m feeling a bit uncomfortable’ and then they found a massive tumour in her pancreas.”
Up until her mum was admitted to palliative care, Love says she believed her mum would be in that seven per cent.
“I think I always thought that she would. She’s strong and we’re all strong and you never think that something like that will happen to you,” she said.
“You hear so many people surviving cancer so you think ‘Great, get it out, a little bit of chemo and then we’ll be good to go’. It wasn’t until really quite late on that we realised it wouldn’t be that.