"Jurassic Park" star actor Sam Neill assured fans there's nothing to worry about after revealing that he has stage 3 blood cancer.
Neill, 75, discussed his diagnosis in his new memoir, "Did I Ever Tell You This?" and in a recent interview with The Guardian, saying that he's "just pleased to be alive." Taking to Instagram on Saturday, Neill said he found the sudden media coverage of his cancer "slightly tiresome," adding that he is "alive and well."
"My news seems to be all over the news at the moment, and it's sort of 'Cancer ! Cancer! Cancer!' Which is slightly tiresome because, as you see, I am alive and well, and I have been in remission for eight months, which feels really good," Neill wrote. "And I'm alive and kicking and I'm going to work. I'm very happy to be going back to work."
In his Instagram post, Neill added that the media's fixation on his cancer diagnosis had been taken out of proportion and detracted from the release of his book.
"I just wish the headline wasn't 'that thing' so much, because the main thing is that I have written this book, it's called 'Did I Ever Tell You This?', and it does mention cancer, because that's the sort of context in which I wrote it," he said.
In his interview with The Guardian, Neill elaborated on his diagnosis and how it led him to write a memoir.
"I can't pretend that the last year hasn't had its dark moments," Neill told The Guardian. "But those dark moments throw the light into sharp relief, you know, and have made me grateful for every day and immensely grateful for all my friends."
Neill has a rare form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and undergoes chemotherapy once a month, likely for the rest of his life. It was while receiving treatment that he began writing vignettes from his life.
"I found myself with nothing to do," he said. "And I'm used to working. I love working. I love going to work. I love being with people every day and enjoying human company and friendship and all these things. And suddenly I was deprived of that. And I thought, What am I going to do?"
Neill said he didn't have any intention to write a book, but as he continued to write, he discovered a new purpose.
"As I went on and kept writing, I realized it was actually sort of giving me a reason to live and I would go to bed thinking, I'll write about that tomorrow … that will entertain me," he said. "And so it was a lifesaver, really, because I couldn't have gone through that with nothing to do, you know."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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