Brave Shannen Doherty is opening up about her battle with breast cancer and revealing for the first time that her cancer has spread to her lymph nodes and beyond. The actress is getting incredibly personal in a new interview about what has now become the fight for her life.
“I had breast cancer that spread to the lymph nodes, and from one of my surgeries we discovered that some of the cancer cells might have actually gone out of the lymph nodes,” Shannen Doherty, 45, emotionally tells Entertainment Tonight in an exclusive Aug. 1 interview. “So for that reason, we are doing chemo, and then after chemo, I’ll do radiation.” So heartbreaking!
The former Beverly Hills 90210 star is also sharing for the first time that she had a single breast mastectomy in May, and that not knowing whether or not her current treatment will work is the most terrifying thing for her at the moment. “The unknown is always the scariest part,” she shares. “Is the chemo going to work? Is the radiation going to work? You know, am I going to have to go through this again, or am I going to get secondary cancer? Everything else is manageable. Pain is manageable, you know living without a breast is manageable, it’s the worry of your future and how your future is going to affect the people that you love.”
Shannen is seen wearing a pink and white scarf to cover her hairless head, which she recently shaved due to losing her hair from the chemo treatments. She discusses her brilliant team of doctors and how they helped her cope initially with the loss of her breast.”He didn’t want me to wake up with absolutely nothing,” she reveals. “It was very important to him that I didn’t have that experience, and so, he put an expander in, so I have a tiny something there. It’s cute and sometimes we fill it up and make it bigger, and sometimes we reduce it.”
Fortunately Shannen has a loving support system, with her photographer/director husband of four years Kurt Iswarienko and her mother Rosa, who was there by her side to comfort Shannen when she shaved off her locks. “I’m being so personal right now,” she recognizes. “But I think a lot of women can probably go, ‘Yeah, I’ve been through that.'”
HollywoodLifers, share your well wishes for Shannen in our comments.
