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Full House alum Dave Coulier says he has been diagnosed with stage 3 Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a blood cancer that develops in the lymphatic system.
The actor told People he was diagnosed in October after an upper respiratory infection caused major swelling in his lymph nodes. His doctor recommended several tests, including bloodwork, EKG, and PET and CT scans. After doctors completed a biopsy of a lymph node, he received the diagnosis.
“Three days later, my doctors called me back and they said, ‘We wish we had better news for you, but you have non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and it’s called B cell and it’s very aggressive,’” he said.
“I went from, I got a little bit of a head cold to I have cancer, and it was pretty overwhelming,” he revealed. “This has been a really fast roller coaster ride of a journey.”
Coulier says he and wife Melissa Bring worked together, along with friends in the medical field, to meet his diagnosis “head-on.”
“We all kind of put our heads together and said, ‘Okay, where are we going?’ And they had a very specific plan for how they were going to treat this.”
He received better news after a bone marrow test came back negative. “At that point, my chances of curable went from something low to 90% range. And so that was a great day.”
Coulier has begun chemotherapy and said he shaved his head as a “peremptive strike.”
He spoke further about his diagnois on the video version of Wednesday’s Full House Rewind podcast which he co-hosts with his former co-star Marla Sokoloff. Wearing a hat, he said “I guess I look a little bit like Mr. Woodchuck now. But it kind of looks military, and it’s appropriate because this is my own personal battle.”
“I started the podcast wearing a hat, and I said, I’ve always been a man of many hats, but this hat has special significance,” he told People. “That was really a conscious decision of, I’m going to meet this head-on, and I want people to know it’s my life. I’m not going to try and hide anything. I would rather talk about it and open the discussion and inspire people.”
Coulier said he hopes his experience can inspire others to undergo early screening.
“Take great care of yourself, because there’s a lot to live for,” he said. “And if that means talking with your doctors or getting a mammogram or a breast exam or colonoscopy, it can really make a big change in your life.”
