Here are some of the famous celebs who have faced down deadly diseases – and come back on top.
Melissa Etheridge
At age 43, Melissa Etheridge, the rock singer-songwriter, discovered a lump in her breast in October of 2004. She had been feeling tired and not completely well – a biopsy revealed it was stage 2 breast cancer. A lumpectomy was performed and Etheridge had all 15 lymph nodes removed when it was shown that the first lymph node, called the sentinel lymph, had cancer in it.
"The good news is they took out the tumor and a few lymph nodes, only one of which was positive. . . . After that my margins are clean! I still have both of my breasts and whether I will keep them is a bridge I have to cross later," said Etheridge six days after her surgery.
Through five rounds of chemotherapy and radiation, she fought nausea, fatigue, bone and muscle pain and sensitivity to light and noise. Confronted by her cancer diagnosis and treatment, Etheridge underwent a spiritual awakening.
“It’s created a change of life,” she said. “I have a different way of looking at the food I put in my body, the stress I take on, the choices that I make – it changed all of that.”
Rod Stewart
British rocker Rod Stewart found he had a malignant tumor on his thyroid gland at age 55. The surgery entailed cutting through his singing muscles to get to the thyroid. The surgeon carefully removed the tumorous growth as it was extremely close to Stewart’s vocal cords. One mistake, and his career would be over. Thankfully, Stewart didn’t have to go through chemo or radiation because they completely removed the growth.
After three months of rest, the doctors assured Stewart that his singing voice would come back. He would have to learn to sing all over again because the muscle memory in those cut muscles was gone. It took more than six months and an agonizing period of raspy vocal exercises with a coach before he could sing a verse of a song. After months of rehabilitation, Stewart is back to full strength and singing again.
Bret Michaels
Bret Michaels, front man for 80s hair band Poison, was diagnosed at age six with diabetes which requires constant blood monitoring and insulin. In 2010, Michaels suffered a brain aneurysm amidst rumors that it was illicit drug use that caused it. But a 2007 study demonstrated that people with diabetes were three to four times more likely to have bleeding in the brain, particularly for those under 55. That same year, he also had an emergency appendectomy.
In 2014, Michaels left the stage when his blood sugar dropped dangerously low. He couldn’t return to the stage that night but the tour continued. That fall, he underwent kidney surgery, probably an outcome from his diabetes. He is fine and continues to tour and work in television. However, he definitely had his share of health obstacles.
Lance Armstrong
Lance Armstrong, the world-famous cyclist, was diagnosed in October 1996 with testicular cancer. The next day the testicle was removed. By the time the testicular cancer was found, the cancer had metastasized to his lungs, abdomen and brain – not a very good diagnosis for a positive outcome. Tumors, some as large as golf balls, were found in his lungs. Cancer was also found in his abdomen and an MRI found two lesions caused by the cancer in Armstrong’s brain.
He had surgery to remove all the tumors and lesions -- then studied up on cancer as if he were studying for the medical SATs. The more information he found about the cancer, the more empowered he felt. He created a supportive community of cancer survivors around himself. He braved chemotherapy and by 1999 he was back to cycling at a world-winning pace.
Christina Applegate
In April 2008, Christina Applegate -- she of “Married with Children” sitcom fame as Kelly, the air-headed, built like a brick house daughter in the family -- was first diagnosed with breast cancer. The daughter of a breast cancer survivor, Applegate had been getting mammograms since she was 30 years of age. In 2007, her doctor recommended an MRI because her breast was “too dense” to get good images with a mammogram.
In 2008, doctors found a cancerous lump in her left breast in the early stages of development. Within a week, she had her first surgery to remove the cancer and underwent six weeks of radiation therapy. She had herself tested for the “breast cancer gene” or BRCA and it came back positive.
“That sort of changed everything for me," she says. "Radiation was something temporary, and it wasn't addressing the issue of this coming back or the chance of it coming back in my left breast. I sort of had to kind of weigh all my options at that point.”
Women with the BRCA gene have a 40 to 85 percent chance of breast or ovarian cancer. The gene also increases the odds that the cancer will return. Applegate had a bilateral mastectomy in July 2008 and says that every time she looks in the mirror, she cannot help but mourn and grieve for the loss of her breasts.
Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie, famous actress and activist, had a bilateral mastectomy in 2013 because she tested positive for the BRCA gene. Her mother, grandmother and aunt had all been struck down by cancer. Because of that, physicians gave Jolie an estimated risk of 87 percent for breast cancer and 50 percent for ovarian cancer. This gene is also strongly associated with other cancers such as uterine, prostate, colon, pancreatic or cervical cancers.
Two years later, in a controversial move, Jolie had her ovaries removed because of the presence of the BRCA gene. Some saw this move as fearfully premature while others saw the advantage of the surgery. Ovarian cancer has no screening test and by the time it is discovered, it typically has moved beyond the ovaries and fallopian tubes into the abdomen. Care and treatment of ovarian cancer is more grueling than breast cancer and has a smaller chance of being cured. Bilateral mastectomy decreases risk of breast cancer by at least 90 percent and removal of the ovaries decreases cancer risk by 70 to 90 percent.
There you have it, six celebrities who outsmarted their illnesses. The one thing these survivors have in common is that they studied their ailments and kept the best possible mindset of positive thoughts and their eyes on the future, a prize in itself for those who have been through medical challenges.