Sam Neill has revealed the emotional letter he is preparing to write to his children as he battles stage-three blood cancer.
The Jurassic Park star, 76, told Australian Story, he started planning to write a letter to his son Tim, daughter Elena and grandchildren after being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin blood cancer.
‘I didn’t know really how long I had to live,’ the actor told the ABC.
‘And I thought yeah, I should probably write something down for my children and my grandchildren because I may not be here in a couple of months and it would be good for them to have a sense of me and and some of the things that I’ve done.’
Neill also revealed a new experimental drug is fighting off his angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma after chemotherapy failed to work.
Sam Neill revealed the note he prepared to write his children in case he had just months to live as Jurassic Park star confirms his fatal stage-three blood cancer diagnosis
‘I’m not in any way frightened of dying. That doesn’t worry me. It’s never worried me from the beginning, but I would be annoyed,’ he added.
‘I’d be annoyed because there are things I still want to do. Very irritating, dying. But I’m not afraid of it.’
Neill said he found out last year that he had cancer during his first trip back to New Zealand after lockdowns made returning home to see his family virtually impossible for two years.
His son Tim told Australian Story that his dad had been back in New Zealand for barely an hour when a doctor phoned with the awful news that he had cancer.
‘When he hung the phone up and we sat down, and we had a little bit of a cry together. It was supposed to be a happy day. He didn’t get to stay,’ Tim said.
The Jurassic Park star, 76, told Australian Story , he started planning to write a letter to his son Tim, daughter Elena and grandchildren after being diagnosed with cancer
Sam continued: ‘I was in really a fight for my life. And everything was a new world and a rather alarming world.
‘I had three or four months of reasonably conventional chemotherapies which are, brutal.’
Tim went to visit his dad as he underwent chemotherapy and was horrified when he saw how weak he was.
‘I was shocked, and I broke down and I could barely hug him. He was just, you know, bones and skin. And then he was giving me a hard time for being upset about it and saying I was stressing him out, but I was going, “What are you talking about, Dad?”‘
Just when they thought Neill’s health might be improving, he received even worse news: The cancer was back and it was more serious this time.
‘I thought yeah, I should probably write something down for my children and my grandchildren because I may not be here in a couple of months and it would be good for them to have a sense of me and and some of the things that I’ve done,’ he said. Pictured with son Tim Neill
Neill was eventually put on an experimental cancer drug, which thankfully started to work.
He has been in remission for 12 months now, but admits he is ‘prepared’ for the fact that it will eventually stop working.
‘I know I’ve got it, but I’m not really interested in it. It’s out of my control. If you can’t control it, don’t get into it,’ he said of the disease.
Neill now has infusions every two weeks and will do so for the rest of his life or until the drug stops working.
Sam also revealed he has been in remission for 12 months thanks to an anti-cancer drug, but admits he is ‘prepared’ for the fact that it will eventually stop working
Content source – www.soundhealthandlastingwealth.com
