Jeff Bridges gave an uplifting health update after battling advanced cancer and COVID-19 in recent years.
A tumor in the actor’s stomach that once measured 9-by-12 inches has shrunk “to the size of a marble,” he told AARP The Magazine.
Bridges was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2020, then tested positive for COVID-19 during his chemotherapy treatment. It proved to be a serious case of the virus, requiring Bridges to receive antibody-rich plasma and to use an oxygen tank.
“A lot of getting better was a matter of setting really small goals,” Bridges told the magazine in an interview published Tuesday. “At first they’d say, ‘How long can you stand?’ For a while, my record was 45 seconds before I’d collapse. And then they were saying: ‘Oh, look, you’re standing for a minute! That’s so cool, now can you walk 5 feet?’”
Bridges, 73, previously shared in January 2021 that the tumor had “drastically shrunk.” He said during a March 2022 panel event for his FX series “The Old Man” that he felt “terrific.”
The “Big Lebowski” star spoke to AARP shortly before returning to the set of “The Old Man” for production of its second season. Production of the first season halted in 2020 due to the pandemic and resumed in 2022, months before premiering last June.
“I come back to work, and, man, it was like a dream, as if we’d just had a long weekend or something,” Bridges told the magazine. “I was seeing all the same faces in the cast and crew. Very bizarre. Everybody showed such dedication and hung in. We finished it. I appreciate that.”
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