Sticking collectively via illness and in well being is one thing Jeff Bridges and spouse Susan have completed all through their marriage. However the glad couple, who have a good time their forty fifth marriage ceremony anniversary on June 5, lately confronted their greatest well being disaster but when Jeff was identified with most cancers after which obtained COVID whereas in chemo.
On this week’s challenge of PEOPLE, the couple opens up for the primary time concerning the harrowing yr and a half when Bridges, 72, was sick. The Oscar winner, who’s now in remission, survived non-Hodgkin lymphoma (a most cancers of the lymphatic system) and practically died of COVID.
Susan says that after they obtained the devastating information that he had most cancers, “we have been form of numb. We simply instantly went via the steps of doing what wanted to be completed.” The actor started chemotherapy by infusion, adopted by oral chemo. All the pieces gave the impression to be working and the tumor in his physique started to shrink.
“They obtained a cocktail that labored, and oh man, it labored quick. The factor simply imploded,” says Bridges.
However in January of 2021, a month after he had begun chemo, Bridges obtained a discover informing him that he might have been uncovered to COVID-19 on the therapy middle. He quickly examined constructive (the vaccine wasn’t but obtainable) and the virus hit him onerous because the chemo had weakened his immune system. “I had no defenses. That is what chemo does — it strips you of all of your immune system. I had nothing to combat it,” he says. “COVID made my most cancers appear like nothing.”
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For Susan, seeing her husband in ache was heartbreaking. “We did not know if he would get well,” she says. She recollects getting a name from the hospital that they might should put him on a ventilator. “I mentioned, ‘Save his life. It doesn’t matter what you must do.’ ”
In the long run, the medical staff was in a position to preserve Bridges off the ventilator, however the actor says, “I used to be fairly near dying. The docs stored telling me, ‘Jeff, you have to combat. You are not preventing.’ I used to be in give up mode. I used to be able to go. I used to be dancing with my mortality.”
At present, Bridges is grateful to be alive and again at work. The star of movies comparable to The Large Lebowski, True Grit and Loopy Coronary heart will subsequent be starring within the drama The Outdated Man on FX on June 16. He says after his well being battle, he is treasuring life’s easy pleasures much more, particularly spending time with Susan.
“We do not have to do a lot. Simply being in the identical neighborhood feels fantastic,” he says.
The couple love spending time with their three daughters, three grandkids and pet Monty, and are excited for what the long run will carry. “It is all like a foul dream now,” Susan says of the yr and a half Jeff was sick. “And now’s the great dream half.”
Watch the total episode of Folks Cowl Story: Jeff Bridges on PeopleTV.com or on the PeopleTV app.
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