“Full House” actor Dave Coulier has disclosed that he has stage 3 non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
The 65-year-old made the announcement during an interview with People magazine published on Wednesday. Coulier said he was diagnosed last month after experiencing an upper respiratory infection with significant swelling in his lymph nodes.
The actor was instructed by his doctor to get PET and CT scans of the swollen area.
“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,’” Coulier told the outlet.
“I went from, I got a little bit of a head cold to I have cancer, and it was pretty overwhelming,” he went on. “This has been a really fast roller coaster ride of a journey.”
Coulier said he reacted to the news and made a plan with his wife, Melissa Bring, and his close friends. That included starting chemotherapy within the first two weeks.
“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, noting that his bone marrow test was 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 also shaved his head in anticipation of losing his hair during the cancer treatments.
“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,” Coulier added. “I’m not going to try and hide anything. I would rather talk about it and open the discussion and inspire people.”
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The actor said he’s using his wife’s support as inspiration to keep going. “I’m going to be strong for her,” he told the outlet, also mentioning family members who have had cancer, including his mother, sister, and niece.
“When I first got the news, I was stunned, of course, because I didn’t expect it, and then reality settled in and I found myself remarkably calm with whatever the outcome was going to be,” he told People.
“I don’t know how to explain it, but there was an inner calm about all of it, and I think that that’s part of what I’ve seen with the women in my family go through. They really instilled that in me and inspired me in a way because they were magnificent going through what they went through, and I just thought, ‘I’m okay with this too.’ I’ve had an incredible life on a journey with incredible people around me and I’m okay. It does change perspective for sure.”
Coulier also shared some advice for his fans, saying, “Take great care of yourself, because there’s a lot to live for. And if that means talking with your doctors or getting a mammogram or a breast exam or colonoscopy, it can really make a big change in your life.”
