Back in April, Dave Coulier announced that he was cancer-free after being diagnosed with lymphoma earlier in the year.
Sadly, the former Full House star revealed today that he’s now facing an entirely new battle.
Coulier says he’s been diagnosed with tongue cancer, a condition that appears to be unrelated to his previous health issues.
“It’s totally unrelated to my non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. This is a new cancer. I said, ‘Are you kidding me?’” Coulier said during an appearance on the Today show Tuesday morning (via Page Six).
Coulier specified that the condition is HPV-related oropharyngeal cancer, which likely stems from “having an HPV virus up to 30 years ago,” which may have “activated and turned into a carcinoma.”
The good news is that the illness is “very treatable” with a “90 percent curability rate.”
“The doctor said the prognosis is good, but we’re going to start radiation immediately,” he said today.
In April, Coulier learned that his cancer was in remission from lymphoma the same day that he found out he’d become a grandfather.
“It was an amazing day,” he said at the time.
Sadly, six months later, Coulier received his tongue cancer diagnosis after he “had a PET scan and something flared on the scan.”
“The silver lining here is that I had cancer, which helped me detect my other cancer. It seems crazy to be making that statement, but it’s true,” he said on the Today show this morning.
Coulier said his first thoughts when he learned of his new diagnosis were for his wife, whom he married in July of 2014.
“It’s psychologically draining. It’s also a big drain to my wife, Melissa [Bring], which is the biggest drain on me, seeing how this affects her,” the actor and comic explained.
Despite facing yet another setback, Coulier says he’s “cautiously optimistic” and believes that he’s “going to get to the other side of this.”
Coulier jokingly described himself as the “poster boy for cancer,” adding:
“How the heck can I not take this moment to use my voice to say to people, ‘Hey, early detection saved my life, and now early detection saved my life again.’”
We wish Dave and his loved ones all the best as they take on this new battle together.