Stanley Tucci feels "incredibly lucky" to be alive after his cancer battle.
Stanley Tucci on getting his taste back after cancer
The 61-year-old actor - who has been married to Felicity Blunt for a decade and has Matteo, seven, and Emilia, three, with her - was diagnosed with a tumour on his tongue in 2017, and says it was his wife's "undying attention" that helped him get through the disease.
He said: "I feel incredibly lucky. Felicity's undying attention, affection and encouragement got me through it, and my friends and family. They check on you, call on you."
The 'Captain America' star - who is also father to 22-year-old twins Nicolo and Isabel, and Camilla, 20, with former wife Kate Tucci, who died of breast cancer in 2009 - had spent two years living with extreme pain in his jaw before the tumour was eventually diagnosed.
He told the new issue of PEOPLE magazine: "I had a scan, but the scan missed it. And of course, when you think that there might be something wrong, you're also afraid that there is something wrong. Having gone through the death of my wife, the death of friends through cancer - you don't want to know so you sort of put it off but eventually I went to a doctor and within ten seconds ... that was that."
Stanley underwent several chemotherapy sessions as well as 35 days of radiation to conquer the tumour, but the treatment left him unable to eat and he had to be fed through a tube.
He said: "All I could think about was food. I wanted to cook all the time and get into restaurants. When I got sick, all of that interest was just heightened and I realised that if I couldn't eat again and share all those wonderful food and wine with friends, I didn't really wanna live anymore.
"Treatment was horrible and eventually I gave up and had to eat through a feeding tube. I lost 35lbs. I had ulcers all over my mouth. At first, I could barely swallow and lost all my beard in one day. You're so sick that your head is nowhere. Nothing seemed real.
"Then suddenly, I could eat one thing and things weren't smelling really gross anymore and things started to change. I'm beginning to relax into life a little more and enjoy life a little more."
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