The Young and the Restless star Eric Braeden shared that he is still in good health after revealing he was cancer-free last year.
“My cancer diagnosis right now is on hold, as it were, and [I’m] very grateful for very good doctors and very good modern cancer treatment which has improved enormously,” Braeden, 83, told Entertainment Tonight on Wednesday, April 10.
In addition to his happy news, the actor noted that he hopes people continue to get their annual health screenings.
“People shouldn’t be afraid of it, you know. Just go and have your cystoscopy, have your colonoscopy, have [your] heart checked out,” Braeden explained to the outlet. “Do all that, do it in time.”
In April 2023, Braeden went public with his cancer diagnosis after he experienced some problems with his prostate while recovering from a knee replacement surgery. After seeing a urologist and having a UroLift, a surgery that relieves pressure on the urethra, Braeden was later diagnosed with cancer and learned he had both low-grade and high-grade cancer cells.
Braeden — who continued to work on the soap opera while undergoing immunotherapy treatments — said in a Facebook video that April that his cancer diagnosis caused him to take time to “slow down” and “listen to [his body.”
“If you’re seeing me a little under the weather, yeah, I have been. But I will lick this,” he shared in the clip. “This bastard ain’t gonna get me – I’m gonna get it. All right? I’ll be in top form again soon.”
Nearly four months later, Braeden announced that he was officially cancer-free.
“The reason I want to talk to you tonight is I want to tell you that I’m grateful [for] all of your good thoughts and prayers,” he said in a Facebook Live video in August 2023. “It [has] meant a great deal to me, and I can tell you it obviously has helped because I had my last cystoscopy two days ago – that’s when they thread a camera into your bladder – and I’m cancer-free. They couldn’t find a damn thing. Isn’t that nice?”
Although Braeden was cancer-free, he noted that his treatment was still not quite over at the time. The actor had to have an MRI to see if the cancer spread and would still have to undergo three prophylactic infusions containing “some stuff that apparently kills the cancer.”
“And then I should be free for a while,” Braeden added. “Every so often, every few months, I’ll have another cystoscopy. All to find the damn thing early and to fight it. To hell with it.”
