Shannen Doherty has been keeping her terminal cancer battle relatively quiet since making the announcement that her cancer had returned back in February.
Now, after her good friend Jason Priestley gave fans an update earlier this month, Shannen is speaking directly to her followers in a new interview with Elle magazine.
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Fans will remember Shannen was previously diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015, but had gone into remission after treatment.
Talking to Good Morning America back in February, Shannen revealed her cancer had come back.
“I’m stage four,” Shannen told ABC news anchor Amy Robach. “My cancer came back.”
The actress then revealed she’s been fighting her diagnosis privately for the past year.
“I don’t think that I’ve processed it. It’s a bitter pill to swallow in a lot of ways,” she continued.
“There are definitely days where I say, ‘Why me?’ and then I go, ‘Well, why not me? Who else?’ Who else besides me deserves this? None of us do.”
Shannen went on to say that she was more concerned about telling her husband and her mom than she was about the diagnosis.
“I’m petrified,” the 49-year-old admitted.
I’m pretty scared. My mom is a ridiculously strong, courageous human being. So is my husband, but I worry about him.”
“I want to be remembered for something bigger than just me,” she added.
Now, in a new interview with *Elle* magazine, Shannen admitted she doesn’t feel like a terminal cancer patient.
Shannen’s husband, Kurt Iswarienko, told the publication his wife doesn’t look like she’s battling stage IV breast cancer, either.
“I think people have a mental picture of Stage IV cancer as someone sitting in a gray hospital gown, looking out a window on their deathbed,” he explained.
“I don’t see a cancer patient when I look at Shannen. I see the same woman I fell in love with. She looks healthy and vital.”
Reflecting on the first time she was diagnosed, Shannen said it brought her back to reality after decades of scandalous rumours and tabloid lies.
“When I got cancer the first time, it was this really beautiful thing, because it finally stripped all of that away. Those walls were, like, eliminated. That sort of childhood resentment—19 to me is childhood—was gone,” she explained.
While discussing life with terminal cancer, Shannen explained, “The small things are magnified for me.”
“We have this endless well within us, and it’s just about continuing to dig in that well for the strength to face adversity—and so that we can also see all the beauty.”
When it comes to final goodbyes, however, Shannen says she isn’t ready.
“I haven’t sat down to write letters. That’s something I need to do. There are things I need to say to my mom. I want my husband to know what he’s meant to me,” she revealed.
“But whenever it comes time for me to do it, it feels so final. It feels like you’re signing off, and I’m not signing off,” she continued.
“I feel like I’m a very, very healthy human being. It’s hard to wrap up your affairs when you feel like you’re going to live another 10 or 15 years.”
The 49-year-old added that she “tries to treasure all the small moments that most people don’t really see or take for granted.”
That’s a really beautiful way to see the world.
We’re wishing you all the best, Shannen!
h/t: Elle .
