Michael Douglas on Cancer: "I'll Beat This"
NEW YORK (CBS) Michael Douglas says he's "an optimistic guy" who believes he'll beat the stage-four throat cancer he was diagnosed with.
The Oscar-winning actor and son of Kirk Douglas also said that keeping his diagnosis under wraps (he went public with the news last month) wasn't an option.
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"Not going public with having cancer was not much of an option, even if I had objected," he told Parade magazine in its Sept. 19 issue. "When you are a celebrity, nothing remains secret for very long. If it helps bring attention, then that is a major upside to this whole thing. Millions of families are going through the same thing my family and I are now going through. If I can bring any relief or encouragement to those suffering, that's the good news."
Douglas told the magazine he is not distraught over his prognosis.
"Life is not all ha-ha-ha. But I'm in good spirits," he said. "I'm an optimistic guy. Nothing has deterred me from my belief that I am going to beat this. My doctors' prognosis is for a full recovery. I have no reason to doubt them."
On the "Late Show" earlier this month, Douglas told host David Letterman that while his disease is late "stage four," the cancer remains above the neck and that means expectations are good, with an 80 percent or better chance of recovery.
His wife, actress Catherine Zeta-Jones, expressed her angerin an interview with People magazine that doctors didn't find the cancer sooner.
Douglas also talked to Parade about his oldest son, Cameron, who is currently serving jail time for a drug conviction.
"Cameron is a really capable guy who conducted himself atrociously," he said. "In the last few years, he was strung out. I missed him. Incarceration really gets your attention, finally. This might be enough now. My visiting him is very limited, but I know I have my son back. I talk to him. Cameron will be away for a long while. Hopefully, as he does his time and begins his rehab, we'll have the best shot at his recovery. I assume responsibility to support him the best I can."
He said that he and Zeta-Jones "always try to be completely honest" with their two children, 10-year-old Dylan and 7-year-old Carys, and that Douglas has taken them to visit their half-brother in federal prison.
He also said that his children are a source of "absolute happiness" for him.
""Do you know what absolute happiness is? For me, it is to wake up my kids in the morning - these little pieces of innocence - to wake them and find they're so happy to see me!" he said. "It is unequivocal love, no question about it. And oh God, is that rare! So I think, Who knows what's next? Right now, we're here, we're together, we're happy."