FULL HOUSE Star Reveals Stage 3 Cancer Diagnosis
By Movieguide® Contributor
FULL HOUSE star Dave Coulier recently announced that he was diagnosed with stage 3 non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
Coulier and his doctors discovered the cancer after he suffered an upper respiratory infection which caused his lymph nodes to swell drastically.
When the swelling reached a point of concern, Coulier’s doctors ordered PET and CT scans and a biopsy.
“Three days later, my doctors called me back and they said, ‘We wish we had better news for you, but you have non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and it’s called B cell and it’s very aggressive,’” the actor told PEOPLE.
“Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma is a type of cancer that begins in your lymphatic system, which is part of the body’s germ-fighting immune system. In non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, white blood cells called lymphocytes grow abnormally and can form growths (tumors) throughout the body,” the Mayo Clinic explains.
“The first thing I said to them was, ‘Wait a minute — cancer?’” Coulier recalled. “[I was] feeling like I got punched in the stomach because it never happens to you. You always hear about it happening to someone else.”
“I went from, I got a little bit of a head cold to I have cancer, and it was pretty overwhelming,” he added.
Upon his diagnosis, Coulier and his wife, Melissa Bring, were able to work with doctors to meet the diagnosis “head-on.”
“We all kind of put our heads together and said, ‘Okay, where are we going?’ And they had a very specific plan for how they were going to treat this,” he said.
One bright spot as he started his cancer battle was learning that his bone marrow test came back negative.
“At that point, my chances of curable went from something low to 90% range. And so that was a great day,” the FULL HOUSE star continued.
READ MORE: DAVE COULIER TALKS FULL HOUSE CAST BOND: ‘WE’RE LIKE A FAMILY’
He opened up about his diagnosis on his “FULL HOUSE REWIND” podcast.
“I’ve often worn many hats in my life and career, and today I’m wearing this hat for another reason. A few weeks ago I was diagnosed with with non-Hodgkins lymphoma…big surprise,” Coulier said.
He explained that he’s already started chemo and “preemtively” cut his hair.
“That was really a conscious decision of, I’m going to meet this head-on, and I want people to know it’s my life. I’m not going to try and hide anything. I would rather talk about it and open the discussion and inspire people,” he told PEOPLE.
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