Sam Neill admits he had some “grim” weekends amid his cancer battle but is grateful to be alive.
Sam Neill has recalled his ‘grim’ weekends amid his cancer treatment
The 76-year-old ‘Jurassic Park’ actor has been in remission for years after fighting stage 3 angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma – a form of blood cancer – and has recalled how his treatment would wipe him out every other weekend.
He told the Herald Sun: “It just meant that every second week it was a case of forget about the weekend because that would be a bit grim.
“But other than that, it’s great to be alive and working and in beautiful places, like York.”
Last year, Sam insisted while he wasn’t afraid of death after battling the disease, he “would be annoyed” because he still has plenty he wants to achieve.
He started having a new experimental drug to fight off the disease, but despite the promising news, he knows it won’t last forever.
He’s been told by his doctors that one day the drug will stop working, which he is “prepared for”.
Sa, told Australian Story at the time: “I’m not in any way frightened of dying. That doesn’t worry me. It’s never worried me from the beginning, but I would be annoyed.
“I’d be annoyed because there are things I still want to do. Very irritating, dying. But I’m not afraid of it.”
After his diagnosis, Sam started chemotherapy, but it stopped working after three months and he switched his treatment to a rare anti-cancer drug which led to him going into remission.
Despite being cancer-free he was required to have infusions every two weeks, however, he’s aware the drug won’t continue working indefinitely.
He added: “I’m prepared for that.”
Sam added of his cancer: “I know I’ve got it, but I’m not really interested in it. It’s out of my control. If you can’t control it, don’t get into it.”
He first revealed news of his cancer battle in his book ‘Did I Ever Tell You This’ which he started work on following his diagnosis.
Speaking to Sky News after the tome’s release, he said: “The cancer thing came out as a corollary to the release of the book, which is a memoir that I wrote when I was under chemo. I’m doing absolutely fine now. What was slightly annoying was that the story was sort of ‘cancer, cancer, cancer, cancer’, and really the other half of the story is ‘remission, remission and remission – and I’m absolutely fine.”
