Donald Sutherland cancer scare
Donald Sutherland Faced Cancer Death After Scuba Training....
Movie veteran Donald Sutherland was misdiagnosed with lung cancer after scuba training for his new movie Fool'S Gold left him coughing up blood.The 72-year-old M*A*S*H star's super-rich character was supposed to be a top diver in the treasure-hunt film, and so he took lessons in a bid to master scuba skills.He passed his diving exams in Australia, where the film was shot last year (07) and then headed back for a Christmas (06) break before shooting began - and that's when doctors realised something was seriously wrong.He recalls, "Two days before New Year's Eve (06) I had excruciating pain in my chest. My wife took me to hospital and they couldn't figure out what to do with me."They did Cat scans, blood tests, everything and the pain was excruciating, so they put me on morphine and it subsided."The next day, which was New Year's Eve, I coughed and spit into my hand and looked at it and thought, 'That's weird, I don't remember eating chocolate.' I put my finger in the palm of my hand it wasn't chocolate, it was blood."I went back to the hospital and they did a nuclear examination of my chest, and they found a growth and my oncologist said it's almost certainly lung cancer."Sutherland was banned from returning to Australia and spent New Year's Day 2007 in the Betty Ford cancer clinic, having tests done and fearing the worst.
He adds, "When I came to, my oncologist was standing over me and he said, 'Have you been scuba diving?' And I said, 'Yeah, why?' He said, 'Because you've got a broken blood vessel in there and you should not be scuba diving at your age. People should stop scuba diving at the age of 50.'" As a result, Sutherland was forbidden from using his new-found scuba skills in the film: "I was not a happy camper but I was glad it was not cancer.
"I've since found out that a 72-year-old friend of my assistant's father went scuba diving and died as a result - from the same kind of embolism."
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