Former Beverly Hills, 90210 star Shannen Doherty revealed on Monday that her breast cancer has spread to other parts of her body.
Doherty was diagnosed with breast cancer in February 2015, and has undergone three out of eight rounds of chemotherapy since then.
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“I had breast cancer that spread to the lymph nodes, and from one of my surgeries we discovered that some of the cancer cells might have actually gone out of the lymph nodes,” Doherty told Entertainment Tonight. “So for that reason, we are doing chemo, and then after chemo, I’ll do radiation.”
Doherty, 45, says she had a single mastectomy in May. She shaved her long hair off so she wouldn’t have to face the trauma of it falling out from chemotherapy.
“The unknown is always the scariest part,” she said. “Is the chemo going to work? Is the radiation going to work? You know, am I going to have to go through this again, or am I going to get secondary cancer? Everything else is manageable. Pain is manageable, you know living without a breast is manageable, it’s the worry of your future and how your future is going to affect the people that you love.”
Doherty is now wearing scarves on her head, and was even sent some special-made scarves by designer Diane von Furstenberg. She claims that she wept while being fitted for new bras, but now openly laughs about the ordeal.
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“It was traumatic and horrible, and I didn’t think anything of it at the time, then my mom went with me and I broke down crying in the dressing room and ran out,” she recalls. “And then sat in the car crying.”
“I’m being so personal right now,” she said. “But I think a lot of women can probably go, ‘Yeah, I’ve been through that.’ It’s great though, you get to pick out what size you want.”
The former 90210 star was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in 2015, but could have been diagnosed earlier had her “negligent” management firm not forgotten to pay her premiums, leaving her with no health insurance.
Doherty launched a lawsuit against her management firm, Tanner Mainstain, alleging that she was diagnosed with breast cancer in March of that year, with the cancer spreading during a time she was uninsured. In court documents, Doherty insists it was the firm’s job to ensure “timely payment” of her medical insurance premiums through her membership in the Screen Actors Guild.
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After she was effectively fired by the management firm, Doherty initially had no idea she had no health insurance. Once she discovered the premiums hadn’t been paid, she re-enrolled with SAG insurance; only then did she begin to see doctors — which is when she received her cancer diagnosis.
Doherty is claiming that had she been insured, she would have been able to receive the diagnosis earlier than she did, and potentially be able to treat it in a far less drastic manner than she’s facing now.
Doherty has been married to her third husband, 42-year-old Kurt Iswarienko, for five years.
With files from The Associated Press