Shannen Doherty Opens Up About Her Breast Cancer Battle
"It remakes you so many different times," she said.
— -- Shannen Doherty opened up to her friend Chelsea Handler about her cancer battle.
In a clip from Handler's Netflix series, "Chelsea," Doherty explained how the disease has changed her.
“I think what’s beautiful and hard and interesting about cancer is that it tears you down and builds you, and tears you down and builds you and it remakes you so many different times," she said. "So the person I thought I was supposed to be or was going to be or who I thought I was six months ago is now somebody completely different. And I realize ‘Wow, I really thought that I was so brave and so gracious this entire time and really I was just hiding.'"
Last year, it was revealed that the former "Beverly Hills, 90210" star, 45, has been diagnosed with breast cancer when she sued her former business managers for allowing her health insurance to lapse. That case reportedly was settled this past August.
Doherty underwent a mastectomy, and when she learned that the disease may have spread to her lymph nodes, she began chemotherapy treatment.
“This was very hard and not humbling -- because I’ve already been humbled by cancer -- but it was hard in the sense of rethinking sort of who you are and how you come to terms with who are now and accepting it and then looking at your husband and thinking like, ‘Dude, I’m so sorry,'" she said.
Doherty has credited her husband of five years, Kurt Iswarienko, with being supportive throughout the ordeal. Last month, on the couple's fifth wedding anniversary, the actress paid tribute to her partner on social media.
"Our wedding was exceptional and not for the big event it was. It was exceptional because we committed for better or worse, in sickness or in health to love and cherish one another," she wrote. "Those vows have never meant more than they do now. Kurt has stood by my side thru sickness and makes me feel more loved now than ever. I would walk any path with this man. Take any bullet for him and slay every dragon to protect him. He is my soul mate. My other half. I am blessed."