Shannen Doherty’s eight-year battle with breast cancer has not been easy. She updated her followers on her health in a recent Instagram picture, writing, “Early morning doctors visit for scans.”
Through weary eyes. The new bandage wraps made me smile, even if my hair was a disaster. Using the hashtag “#cancerslayer,” she shared a photo of herself wearing pink bandages.
In 2015, Doherty discovered a lump in her breast and received the devastating news that she had breast cancer. She had to undergo radiation, chemotherapy, and one mastectomy after a period of hormone treatment.
To Doherty’s delight, his cancer went into remission in 2017. Regrettably, in February 2020, stage IV breast cancer reappeared. Her disease has not only impacted her legs but also other parts of her body.
There are four stages of breast cancer, from stage 0 to stage IV; higher stages indicate more advanced cancer or the extent to which cancer cells have expanded beyond the original tumor.
The Mayo Clinic states that stage 0 refers to a benign disease that is contained within the milk ducts, whereas stage IV, also called metastatic breast cancer, where Doherty currently resides, indicates that the cancer has moved to other organs.
Metastatic illness affects around 150,000 breast cancer survivors in the US, according to the American Cancer Society.
Research has demonstrated that the lifetime of individuals diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer has considerably increased due to technological breakthroughs, despite the fact that the disease is typically incurable.
List of a Lifetime and Dying to Belong were two TV movies that Doherty starred in last year. They helped her get through the difficult years of cancer treatment.
The actress has been very open on social media about her cancer journey, particularly her chemotherapy, throughout the years.
“I experienced multiple nose bleeds from the treatment,” she told her readers in an October 2018 piece detailing her struggle with breast cancer.
I am uncertain whether any of you have been through this. I was very exhausted as well. To cheer myself up, I slipped into a pair of outrageous pajamas that my friend Kristy had given me.
Were they sincere in their attempts to lift my spirits? Yes!! Lol. I could chuckle at myself for how foolish I looked. A good belly laugh got me through the seemingly insurmountable. At the seemingly impossible, I believe we can all find humor.