Rhianna Benson
Nine months since bravely revealing his colorectal cancer diagnosis, and James Van Der Beek has provided an emotional update on his health.
Speaking to Healthline this week, the 48-year-old reflected on his earliest days with the life-threatening condition, admitting he repeatedly brushed over one symptom in particular.
For those in need of a reminder, Van Der Beek first broke the news of his ailing health in an interview with PEOPLE Magazine, in November of last year.
"I’ve been privately dealing with this diagnosis and have been taking steps to resolve it," the Dawson's Creek actor told the publication at the time. "With the support of my incredible family."
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He also shared a video of himself playing alongside his children and penned in an emotional follow-up statement at the same time, telling his online followers: "It is cancer...
"Each year, approximately 2 billion people around the world receive this diagnosis. And I’m one of them."
Van Der Beek went on to apologise to any of his loved ones that learned of his diagnosis through the magazine interview, but said he hopes to 'raise awareness and tell my story on my own terms' going forward.
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And that's just what the TV star has done this week, letting Healthline in on how exactly he discovered he'd been battling cancer.
"There wasn’t any red flag or something glaring,” he began. "I was healthy. I was doing the cold plunge. I was in amazing cardiovascular shape, and I had stage 3 cancer, and I had no idea."
He said: "Before my diagnosis, I didn’t know much about colorectal cancer. I didn’t even realise the screening age dropped to 45; I thought it was still 50."
Whilst he'd noticed some changes in his bowel movements around this time - one of the most common indicators of bowel cancer - Van Der Beek confessed to putting this down to caffeine consumption.
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"I thought maybe I needed to stop coffee. Or maybe not put cream in the coffee," he continued. "But when I cut that out and it didn’t improve, I thought, 'All right, I better get this checked out'."
Following a colonoscopy, the actor was dealt the news.
Giving advice for anyone else who's struggling with a cancer diagnosis, he said: "Find out who you can lean on and ask for help. Really find who your people are and reach out. You can’t do this alone.
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"That was the biggest [challenge] for me because I never asked for help. And what I realized was just how many people were there to show up for me, how I’d been wronging them of the opportunity to show up because I try to do everything all the time."
According to experts that spoke to the New York Post recently, bowel movement changes in these cases are down to a tumour having grown in the colon or rectum, which acts in a similar way to 'a clog in a pipe'.
This, in turn, can cause changes like constipation, diarrhea, or both. A large proportion of colorectal cancer sufferers also admitted to not feeling 'empty' after using the toilet during the early stages.
Others reportedly claimed their stools appeared different during this time - predominantly pencil thin, caused by tumours near the end of the colon or lining its insides.
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Other indicators of a colorectal cancer battle are general fatigue, as well as unexplained weight loss, pain in the stomach area, and rectal bleeding.
Van Der Beek added: "[Colorectal cancer] is the second leading cause of cancer death, but if you look closer, it’s also the most curable.
"I really want people to understand that [when found] in the early stages, the survival rates skyrocket."