James Van Der Beek talks about the symptoms he experienced that made a routine colonoscopy even more crucial — if not life-saving — last August, when he was stunned to learn he had stage three colorectal cancer.
“It was just a change in bowel habits,” he told PEOPLE for this week’s cover story. “I thought, I probably need to change my diet a little bit. Maybe I need to stop drinking coffee. Maybe I shouldn’t put cream in my coffee. And then I finally cut it out of my diet, and it didn’t improve, and I thought, okay, I better go with this check.”
When he went in for surgery, he said he wasn’t worried.
“I felt really, really good coming out of anesthesia that I finally did it and explored it,” he says. “And as I was coming out of my haze, the gastroenterologist said – in his most pleasant bedside manner – yes is Cancer.”
The actor (47) says he fell into shock.
James Van Der Beek reveals moment he ‘went into shock’ after learning he was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer (Exclusive)
“I am very healthy,” he says. “I was in amazing cardiovascular shape. I was trying to eat as healthy as I could, as much as I knew at the time. Although I’ve learned a lot since then about what healthy eating really is.”
Van Der Beek says the next phase in his life was his new “full-time job” because of cancer: scheduling appointments, handling insurance, cataloging results. But along the way he also learned how he could and should change his diet.
James Van Der Beek meditates at home in TX on October 29, 2024.
Peter Yang
“I think the earth is waking up to connect with our food and recognize how processed it is and how far it is from the way nature intended,” he says, conscious of reading labels and looking at what goes into the food he buys at the grocery store.
“I would encourage everyone to do the same because this is not a fun process,” he says of colon cancer treatment. “There are a lot of assumptions, I think, that we’ve all grown up with about what’s healthy and what’s not. And I think we’d do well to shed those assumptions.”
James Van Der Beek apologizes to loved ones who learned about his colon cancer diagnosis from the press: ‘There is no manual’
Van Der Beek says he is “feeling good” at the moment.
“I’m very cautiously optimistic,” he says now. “I’m in a place of healing, my energy level is great.”
His routine these days includes avoiding processed foods, gluten and dairy, eating organic vegetables from his garden and exercising regularly. He learned to prioritize his mental health. “Sometimes you have to break down,” he says. “But now I have a lot more self-love and self-acceptance…I had no idea how negative my self-talk was before this.”
As for his future plans? He says he will be here. “But it will be an easier life, with a lot more immediate joy,” says Van Der Beek. Appreciates returning to work, including appearing in The real Full Montyspecial on Fox starting Dec. 9 in which celebrities will strip down to raise money for cancer testing and research.
In a way, he is glad that he now has the chance to change his lifestyle.
“I really don’t feel like this is going to finish me off,” he says. “I really feel like this is going to be the biggest redirection of my life and I’m going to make changes that I never would have made otherwise. That I’m going to look back on in a year or five years, 30 years from now and say, ‘Thank God that happened.’
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Source: HIS Education