Months after Dave Coulier revealed he was cancer-free after battling a “very aggressive” form of non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, the actor is facing another devastating cancer diagnosis.
In an interview with Today on Tuesday, the Full House star announced that he had been diagnosed with early stage P16 carcinoma, or oropharyngeal tongue cancer, in October, which is “totally unrelated to the previous cancer that I had.”
“I went in for a PET scan, just a routine check-up and something flared on the PET scan,” Coulier explained. “It turned out that I have P16 squamous carcinoma at the base of my tongue. So I said to the doctors, I said, ‘Well, did this happen because of the lymphoma?’ And they said, ‘Totally unrelated.'”
The actor and comedian, who played Uncle Joey on the beloved ABC sitcom and its Netflix revival, Fuller House, revealed last November that he had been diagnosed with stage 3 non-Hodgkin lymphoma. He confirmed that he was cancer-free in statement on April 1, five months after his announcement.
Now, the 66-year-old is once again undergoing radiation therapy in hopes of a similar recovery. The comedian will undergo 35 treatments in total, which will last through the end of the year.
“To go through chemotherapy and feel that relief of whoah, it’s gone, and then to get a test that says, well now you’ve got another kind of cancer … it is a shock to the system,” Coulier admitted.
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Thankfully, he shared that his prognosis is “very good.”
He told Today cohost Craig Melvin: “So it has a 90-plus curability rate. But the thing that has really saved my life, Craig, is that early detection saved my life, not just the first time but the second time as well. So I hope you’re getting your checkups. I hope you’re getting colonoscopies and breast exams and prostate exams, they will save your life.”
Coulier said that the experience of being diagnosed with two cancers in one year has taken a toll on his family. “It’s emotional. It’s psychologically draining. It’s also a big drain to my wife, Melissa, which is the biggest drain on me, seeing how this affects her,” he shared.
But, Coulier remains “cautiously optimistic.”
“I’m going to get on the other side of this,” he added. “The silver lining here is that I had cancer, which helped me detect my other cancer. It seems crazy to be making that statement, but it’s true. Had I not gone in and listened to my doctors and made sure that I got that PET scan to follow up, we would have never found this carcinoma … and I could be in a world of hurt. This could have progressed immensely, and I would be in trouble.”
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly