Shannen Doherty says her cancer has spread to her bones: ‘I don’t want to die’
(TMX/Gray News) – Actress Shannen Doherty revealed her stage 4 breast cancer has spread to her bones, less than a year after it spread to her brain.
“I don’t want to die,” the “Beverly Hills, 90210″ star told People for a cover story published Wednesday.
She continued, “I’m not done with living. I’m not done with loving. I’m not done with creating. I’m not done with hopefully changing things for the better.”
The 52-year-old was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015, and underwent a mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation. In 2017, she revealed her cancer was in remission. But in 2019, it returned, and she was diagnosed with metastatic stage 4 cancer.
“When you ask yourself, ‘Why me? Why did I get cancer?’ and then ‘Why did my cancer come back? Why am I stage 4?’ that leads you to look for the bigger purpose in life,” she said. “It’s insane to me we still don’t have a cure.”
She hopes to raise funds for cancer research and prove that people with cancer can still work and contribute.
“People just assume that it means you can’t walk, you can’t eat, you can’t work. They put you out to pasture at a very early age – ‘You’re done, you’re retired,’ and we’re not,” she said. “We’re vibrant, and we have such a different outlook on life. We are people who want to work and embrace life and keep moving forward.”
Doherty’s dark humor led her to jokingly name her brain tumor Bob when her cancer spread earlier this year. In June, she revealed on Instagram that she had the surgery to remove the brain tumor five months earlier.
“He had to get removed and dissected to see his pathology,” she wrote at the time. “It was definitely one of the scariest things I’ve ever been through in my entire life.”
Now that the cancer is in her bones, the “Charmed” star is hoping to be accepted into clinical trials for new treatments.
“My greatest memory is yet to come,” she said. “I pray. I wake up and go to bed thanking God, praying for the things that matter to me without asking for too much. It connects me to a higher power and spirituality. My faith is my mantra.”
Copyright 2023 Gray Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved. TMX contributed to this report.
