Cancer has given Michael Douglas a new appreciation for life, said Lynn Hirschberg in The Sunday Times (U.K.). The actor noticed the first signs of his illness in 2010. “My tooth was really sore, and I thought I had an infection,” says Douglas, 68. He saw two doctors, who prescribed him antibiotics. But the pain continued. At a friend’s recommendation, he visited a doctor in Montreal. “That doctor told me to open my mouth, took a tongue depressor, and then he looked at me. I will always remember the look on his face. He said, ‘We need a biopsy.’ There was a walnut-sized tumor at the base of my tongue no other doctor had seen.” Tests revealed that Douglas had stage 4 cancer—the most advanced kind. “I said, ‘Stage 4. Jesus.’ And that was that.” Douglas underwent eight weeks of intensive chemotherapy and radiotherapy, with the radiation leaving his mouth so burned he couldn’t eat solid food. “Matzo-ball soup was great, but I still lost 45 pounds.” During treatment, he figured that he’d been so fortunate for so long that “I was ready for some karmic retribution.” Douglas eventually beat the disease, and now finds himself getting plenty of work. “It feels great to be back. Maybe that’s the benefit of taking a break with cancer. Then people say, ‘What happened to him? Please come back.’”
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