During the 2017 Loudwire Music Awards which occurred on October 24th in downtown Los Angeles, Black Sabbath’s guitarist Tony Iommi was presented with the Courage Award. Iommi recieved the award for successfully battling cancer while entertaining fans all over the world.

It is always saddening to hear someone diagnosed with an illness even if it’s someone you may not know. For fans of Black Sabbath, it was heartbreaking to hear of guitarist, Tony Iommi battle with cancer. The battle, unfortunately is still going on and appears to remain in Iommi’s life. Backstage at the awards show, Iommi shared that his doctor predicted that his lymphoma may likely return in the future. This news comes a year after Iommi announced that he was in remission.

News that Iommi was diagnosed with lymphoma came in early 2012, shortly after Black Sabbath announced that a reunion was in the works for November 11th, 2011. Though this news didn’t stop him from slowing down his life. The guitarist went through treatment throughout both the recording of the album titled 13 and the tour that followed.

Iommi recalled some of the highs and lows of the past few years touring and performing.

“It’s always been hard traveling since I was diagnosed. I have to sort of be careful,” Iommi says. “There’s nothing I can knock about it. I love playing on the road, I love being in the band, I love playing to the fans, but it’s just the other side — you can only do what you can do.”

As far as his health is concerned, Iommi remains both hopeful and realistic as he spoke how how his cancer diagnosis has changed his perspective on life, “To me, it’s never going to go away, it’s always going to be there,” the guitarist reveals. “According to my oncologist, it’s probably going to come back. It’s hard to sort of go, ‘Oh, well that’s brilliant then.’ Every day is a winner, really. We’ll see. I hope it doesn’t come back, but you never know.”

Early this year, the Black Sabbath guitarist successfully underwent an operation to remove a noncancerous lump from his throat. Family, friends and fans from all over the world remain as hopeful as Iommi and hope that the fight will come to an end soon.

Photo Credit: Mauricio Alvarado