“Full House” star Dave Coulier revealed on Wednesday that he has been diagnosed with Stage 3 non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a form of blood cancer.
Speaking to Hoda Kotb on the “Today” show, the 65-year-old said he was diagnosed five weeks ago and has since undergone three surgeries. “I’ve lost a little bit of hair,” he said. “I kind of look like a little baby bird now.”
The first sign that something was wrong, he said, was when he came down with a cold and swelling in a lymph node near his groin grew to the size of a golf ball within a few days.
“It swelled up immediately,” Coulier said in an interview on Today.com. “I thought, ‘Wow, I’m either really sick, or my body’s really reacting to something.’”
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After visiting the doctor to run some tests, Coulier received his diagnosis. “The first thing I said to them was, ‘Wait a minute — cancer?’” Coulier said, adding that it felt “like I got punched in the stomach because it never happens to you. You always hear about it happening to someone else.”
After learning that his cancer was Stage 3 — meaning that it has not yet spread outside the lymphatic system — Coulier began chemotherapy immediately, undergoing a surgery to install a port to provide his body with medication.
“You hear chemo, and it scares the daylights out of you,” he said. “The first round was pretty intense because you don’t know what to expect. You don’t know how you’re going to feel. Is this going to hit me immediately? Is it going to be devastating? Am I going to walk out of here?”
Coulier will have six rounds of chemotherapy every 21 days, and should be done with treatment by February. “It’s been a bit of a roller coaster,” Coulier said of his cancer journey. “There [are] days where I feel unbelievable. Then there’s other days where … I’m just going to lay down and let this be what it’s going to be.”
Since the cancer hasn’t spread, Coulier added that the curability rate is over 90%. “It’s very treatable,” he said.
Watch Coulier’s full appearance on “Today” here.
