Star from the family series Full house (Full house) Dave Coulier (65) for she admitted that she has stage three non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He was diagnosed in October after an upper respiratory infection caused his lymph nodes to swell greatly. As his swelling rapidly increased and one area grew to the size of a golf ball, the doctor recommended a PET and CT scan, as well as a biopsy, which ended up changing his life.
“Three days later, the doctors called me back and said, ‘We’d love to have better news for you, but you have non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which is called B-cell and is very aggressive,'” he mentions. “From a small head cold, I became an oncology patient and it was quite overwhelming. It was a really fast rollercoaster ride,” he added.
According to the Mayo Clinic, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma causes abnormal growth of white blood cells, causing tumors to grow throughout the body. Symptoms include swollen lymph nodes as well as chest pain or fever. The clinic says B-cell lymphoma – the type the actor has – is rare and attacks the skin.
When he learned his diagnosis, he said that together he and his wife Melissa and some close friends in the medical field immediately worked together to cope with the diagnosis.
“We all put our heads together and said, ‘Okay, where are we going?’ And they they had a very specific plan for how they were going to treat it,” he says that the bright spot in his diagnosis was when his bone marrow test came back negative. “That’s when my chances of being cured went from something low to 90%. And so it was a great day,” he explained.
Coulier says he immediately began chemotherapy two weeks after his diagnosis. He shaved his head as a precaution and talked about his experiences further in the podcast Full House Rewind s Marlou Sokoloff. The actor has already completed the first of six chemotherapy treatments and takes everything day by day. She hopes that by sharing her own story, she can inspire others to get tested early.
“Some days I feel sick and dizzy, and then there are days when the steroids kick in and I feel like I have tons of energy. I actually went ice skating yesterday with friends here in Detroit. We just went skating and shooting pucks and it was awesome to be out there doing something I love and trying to focus on all the great things I have in my life,” he concluded.
