William Shatner has revealed he and his daughter Melanie faced stage four cancer together after they were both diagnosed around the same time. <\/p>\n
The Star Trek actor, 95, shared that in June 2023 he was diagnosed with stage four malignant melanoma that spread to his lungs and brain.<\/p>\n
The diagnosis came just as his daughter Melanie was in the final stretch of her treatment for stage four breast cancer after she received her diagnosis in 2022.<\/p>\n
Speaking to People magazine, the pair shared details of their health struggles.<\/p>\n
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For William Shatner, concerns were raised after a lump grew on his cheek, which a doctor initially said was a blocked salivary gland and told him to “just massage it”.<\/p>\n
However, after it continued to grow, a month later he was warned by a plastic surgeon friend he “better get it out” after realising it was a tumour.<\/p>\n
William Shatner then underwent surgery, which was followed by two years of immunotherapy to target the cancer in his lungs and brain.<\/p>\n
As his daughter explained, William Shatner did not let the treatment “stop his life”.<\/p>\n
“He kept working and moving forward,” she said.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Melanie Shatner \u2013 whose mother was Canadian actress Gloria Rand, who died in 2017 \u2013 had discovered a lump on her breast in 2022 and initially thought it was an insect bite after having a clear mammogram five months earlier.<\/p>\n
Although the technician initially found nothing concerning, Melanie Shatner said “something pushed me back”.<\/p>\n
She asked for it to be rechecked \u2013 with testing then confirming she had cancer that had spread to her lymph nodes in her chest.<\/p>\n
“I was devastated,” William Shatner said of being told of his daughter’s diagnosis.<\/p>\n
After undergoing 18 months of multiple rounds of chemotherapy, a double mastectomy, and 30 radiation therapy treatments, Melanie Shatner was about to finish treatment when her father was diagnosed with cancer too.<\/p>\n
She said: “I remember vividly thinking, ‘I don’t have the strength to take care of myself and lose my father at the same time’.”<\/p>\n
However, William Shatner remained positive, continui ng: “They said, ‘You got cancer. If you came in later, you would have been dead’. See? That’s my life. I think the Universe is taking care of me.”<\/p>\n
The father and daughter are now both cancer-free, with Melanie Shatner saying overcoming cancer “changed my life” and she is “not so afraid anymore”. <\/p>\n
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Her father added: “We’re a very together family. We’re bonded by all kinds of difficulties that we’ve overcome.”<\/p>\n
The actor went on to share that he is now “healthier than I’ve been in years”.<\/p>\n
William Shatner is best known for playing Captain James T Kirk in the Star Trek franchise from 1966 to 1994.<\/p>\n
In 2021, he also became the oldest person to fly in space after being a passenger aboard Blue Origin NS-18<\/a>.<\/p>\n