Actor Bruce Campbell is opening up about his battle with cancer, revealing that doctors have given him a sobering outlook following his diagnosis earlier this year.
The 68-year-old “Evil Dead” star revealed that he was diagnosed in March with a form of cancer that can be treated but currently cannot be cured.
During a recent appearance on “The Adam Carolla Show,” Campbell explained that doctors have told him the disease generally comes with what he described as a “five-year deal.”
“With the type of cancer that I have, which I don’t want to get into, the current thing is a five-year deal,” Campbell said. “I’ve decided pretty specifically to live with it, not die from it.”
Despite the frightening diagnosis, Campbell said he is trying not to become consumed by researching the disease or reading about other patients with similar conditions.
“You can go down a massive rabbit hole,” he said. “The cancer rabbit hole is enormous. You can go into focus groups of 10,000 guys who have exactly what you have. I won’t touch it with a 10-foot pole.”
Campbell has continued working while undergoing treatment and is currently promoting his new movie, “Ernie & Emma.”
He said the diagnosis has forced him to decide whether cancer will control his life or simply become something he manages along the way.
“When I promote this movie, I have nothing,” Campbell explained. “I’m free and clear when I promote this movie. You have to make this decision of, ‘Oh okay, but do I have to stop everything I’m doing because of this?’ Well no.”
Campbell described his new reality as a kind of “whack-a-mole life,” dealing with health problems as they appear and then continuing forward.
“Cancer compromises [things] inside your body,” he said. “You don’t die from cancer, you die from what cancer does to you. It does weird [things] and then you address it and move on.”
Campbell first publicly revealed his diagnosis in an Instagram post in March, telling fans that he was facing what he jokingly described as a new “opportunity.”
“These days, when someone is having a health issue, it’s referred to as an ‘opportunity,’ so let’s go with that,” he wrote. “I’m having one of those. It’s also called a type of cancer that’s ‘treatable’ not ‘curable.’”
Campbell acknowledged that the revelation would likely come as a shock to longtime fans.
“I apologize if that’s a shock,” he wrote. “It was to me too.”