JEFF BRIDGES: I was kind of surrendering to the idea that I might die,” Bridges said of his illnesses

JEFF BRIDGES REFLECTS ON CANCER DIAGNOSIS: ‘CAME PRETTY CLOSE TO DYING’

Over three years after his lymphoma analysis, Jeff Bridges mirrored on a harrowing set of circumstances that left him on demise’s door.

“It’s superb the way in which the thoughts can neglect all that stuff,” the 74-year-old actor informed Web page Six. “I don’t suppose an excessive amount of concerning the previous.”
Bridges revealed that in considered one of his bouts of chemo, he ended up contracting COVID, leaving him hospitalized for 5 months with excessive ache and little or no hope.

“I used to be fairly near dying. The medical doctors stored telling me, ‘Jeff, you’ve received to struggle. You’re not combating,’” he informed Folks in Might 2022. “I used to be in give up mode. I used to be able to go. I used to be dancing with my mortality.”
“I had no defenses,” he added. “That’s what chemo does—it strips you of all of your immune system. I had nothing to struggle it. COVID made my most cancers seem like nothing.”
Fortunately, the chemo session earlier than contracting COVID was his final one, and he was ready to enter remission whereas starting this new struggle. This allowed his physique to totally deal with recovering, and with assist from a process that used blood from different sufferers who had already overwhelmed the illness, Bridges was lastly capable of make progress.
Over three years later, the actor is now “feeling” nice and absolutely again into the swing of issues, returning to movie his upcoming present THE OLD MAN. It was whereas he was filming this present initially that he found he had lymphoma.
“I used to be doing these struggle scenes for the primary episode of THE OLD MAN and didn’t know that I had a 9-by-12-inch tumor in my physique,” he informed AARP Journal. “You’d suppose that may have damage or one thing, once they had been punching me and stuff. It didn’t.”
Jeff Bridges lately walked the purple carpet for the premier of his FX present THE OLD MAN, and followers had been overjoyed to see the actor again after a collection of well being struggles.
Whereas filming the present, medical doctors identified Bridges with Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The actor underwent chemotherapy, and through therapy, contracted COVID-19.
“I used to be form of surrendering to the concept that I’d die,” Bridges mentioned of his sicknesses. “That this may be the tip of the race form of factor, as a result of that’s what’s going to occur to all of us in some unspecified time in the future and perhaps this was my time to undergo that and I didn’t know.”
Nonetheless, Bridges started to recuperate. The TRUE GRIT actor mentioned that he realized that he nonetheless wished to struggle to remain alive.