By Michaela Gordoni
FULL HOUSE star David Coulier wants people to know that early cancer detection saves lives.
“Listen to your body. Your body will tell you things,” Coulier said. “And my body was telling me something’s going on.”
“I wasn’t feeling right, and I didn’t have a lot of energy. And then I was taking a shower one morning and felt a lump in my groin area,” he said. “And had I just thought, ‘Ah, I haven’t been feeling very well. It’s maybe a cold or something. My body is just naturally fighting this off.’”
He caught the cancer — non-Hodgkin lymphoma — early on. If his wife Melissa hadn’t insisted they call the doctor, his prognosis would have been different.
“Your body will really send you some signals,” he added. “And I think for a lot of us, we procrastinate, and we say, ‘Oh, no, let this go and we’ll see how it goes.’ And when you get to that point with cancer – cancer is working out in the background every day. It’s getting stronger and stronger, and it’s a fight.”
Your health is much more important than your pride, he emphasized.
“So I encourage everybody, talk to your doctors,” he said.
Related: FULL HOUSE Star Celebrates Being Cancer Free After Second Diagnosis
A few months after he was treated and recovered, doctors found out he had HPV-related oropharyngeal tongue cancer.
“It was a big shocker,” Coulier told USA Today in December. The two cancers weren’t related.
After 35 rounds of radiation and a tongue surgery, he is cancer-free.
“It’s a great relief,” Coulier explained of being in remission, “because when you’re struck with two different cancers in a year-and-a-half period, it is a double whammy. Cancer can steal a lot of things away from you, physically, psychologically, emotionally. And so you’re battling life on a bunch of different fronts.”
Coulier is an ambassador for The V Foundation for Cancer Research and the NHL’s Hockey Fights Cancer.
“It’s changed my life in a number of ways in that I think I can inspire people to get early detection and get those colonoscopies and prostate exams. And get those mammograms,” he said. “Believe me, I never wanted to be the poster boy for cancer, but I’m willing to carry the flag for everyone and encourage others that this is a disease none of us should have to go through.”
He admitted that his cancer helped him to become vulnerable.
“When you’re faced with those kinds of challenges, you realize that the people around you are very, very important,” Coulier said. “My wife Melissa was incredible throughout this whole process. She was there every single day with me and I didn’t want to be a burden on her.”
“And I think for a lot of men, it’s very tough to be vulnerable that way, because we consider ourselves the providers for our families,” he said. “And we want to be a pillar of strength for everyone. So, for me, I realized I have to be vulnerable here, and I have to just kind of succumb to this illness but still battle it in my own way.”
He founded a platform, AWEAR Market, that helps people find non-toxic products.
“I went down the rabbit hole and I started looking at all the products in my own life and I realized I was surrounded by toxicity,” he explained.
The website’s mission statement reads, “Our mission is to inspire and inform the journey to healthier, more natural living by curating products that honor nature, respect the body, and elevate daily life with the highest standards of wellness and purity.”
Even though he’s in remission, Coulier feels like “cancer is always in the rearview mirror.”
Hopefully, though, Coulier won’t have to experience it again.
Read Next: FULL HOUSE Star Sees ‘The Finish Line’ Amid Second Cancer Battle
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