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Shannen Doherty shares throwback video of brain cancer surgery

Written by ABC Audio. All rights reserved. on June 15, 2023

A week after sharing footage from a January brain scan and explaining to her followers that her stage 4 breast cancer has migrated to her brain, Shannen Doherty has posted another throwback video from her ongoing battle.

“January 16, 2023. Surgery. I had a tumor in my head they wanted to remove and also biopsy,” the former Beverly Hills, 90210 star captioned a video of herself in her hospital bed.

The actress is seen joking with a nurse during a pre-op check-up.

“I am clearly trying to be brave but I am petrified,” the 52-year-old actress explained in the caption, adding, “The fear was overwhelming to me. Scared of all possible bad outcomes, worried about leaving my mom and how that would impact her. Worried that I would come out of surgery not me anymore.”

Revisiting a refrain she made in the previous post, Shannen said, “This is what cancer can look like.”

Doherty was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015, and after entering remission, she revealed in 2020 that the disease had spread and returned as stage 4.

In an interview with Good Morning America, the actress said the diagnosis was “a bitter pill to swallow in a lot of ways.”

“I definitely have days where I say, ‘Why me?’ And then I go, ‘Well, why not me?’ Who else? Who else besides me deserves this? None of us do,” she said at the time.