Dolph Lundgren's first symptom of cancer recurrence before terminal diagnosis

20 July 2023 , 12:11

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Dolph Lundgren and Emma Krokdal married this month in Greece following his terminal diagnosis (Image: WireImage)

Dolph Lundgren and his partner Emma Krokdal tied the knot in a gorgeous ceremony in Mykonos this month.

Sadly, the grand Greek wedding came on the back of the Rocky actor's admission that he has just 'two to three years' left to live following an eight-year cancer journey.

The 65-year-old proposed to Emma, who is almost 40 years his junior, during a romantic getaway to Sweden, having gone public with their relationship several months before.

And Dolph recently admitted that he "appreciates life a lot more" after what he's been through over the past eight years.

Dolph Lundgren was diagnosed with cancer in 2015 but only went public this year (Daniele Venturelli/Getty Images)

Dolph married his fiancée after being given 'two to three years to live' (dolphlundgren/Instagram)

Announcing the diagnosis in May, the Swedish film star said the first tumour was found in his kidney eight years ago. It was successfully removed and he enjoyed five years of clear scans before the cancer spread to his lungs, spine, liver and stomach in 2020. To his utter devastation, he was told that his cancer was terminal. 

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"[There was a] tumour in my kidney and they took it out in 2015 [...] but then they did a biopsy and it was cancerous," he explained. Over the following five years, Doplh continued to have scans which showed he was "fine".

Then an MRI in 2020 found "more tumours" following a worrying symptom. "I was back in Sweden and had some kind of acid reflux… so I did an MRI, and they found that there were a few more tumours around that area."

Speaking on In Depth With Graham Bensinger, Dolph said: "At that point, it started to hit me that this is kinda something serious." He managed to have six tumours removed but there was still one remaining tumour, the size of a lemon, that couldn't be removed as it had grown "too big" for surgery. As a result, he was put forward for systemic therapy, but suffered from side effects including diarrhoea and weight loss.

His then-fiancée Emma Krokdal, a personal trainer, recalled that her now husband's suffered from pain in his extremities and struggled to keep food down. "His mouth got really sore," Emma said during the interview with Graham. "His hands got sore, feet, and he couldn’t eat anything warm, anything cold, anything spicy. So that was a struggle to get food down, so he kept losing weight."

Dolph alongside Sylvester Stallone on the set of Rocky IV (Corbis via Getty Images)

Amid his battle, Dolph turned to his oncologist and asked for a prognosis. "So I kinda asked him y'know 'how long do you think I have got left?'" he explained. "I think he said two or three years but I could tell in his voice that he probably thought it was less."

Riddled with guilt for his family over having just a few years left, he sought out a second opinion from oncologist, Dr. Alexandra Drakaki. She luckily discovered a mutation in his kidney cancer that allowed her to treat it like a lung cancer, which opened more doors for treatment.

The Kindergarten Cop 2 stated: "If I'd gone on the other treatment, I had about three or four months left. I couldn't believe that it would be that radical of a difference that within three months, things were shrinking by 20, 30 percent."

Last year, his tumour reportedly shrunk by 90 percent. "Now I'm in the process of taking out the remaining scar tissue of these tumours," he added. "Hopefully when they take these out, there is no cancer activity, and the medication that I'm taking is going to suppress everything else."

The Expendables star admitted that he used steroids early in his career and said he's considered the possibility that they have contributed to his cancer diagnosis later in life. He said in the interview: "I don't know if it has something to do with the cancer. Of course it struck me as it could have had something to do with it. I thought about it".

Dolph has two daughters close to his wife's age, including 27-year-old Ida and 21-year-old Greta. He shares the two with his ex-wife Anette Qviberg. According to the couple, they chose to tie the knot at their villa in Mykonos surrounded by their close friends and family.

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"With both Covid and a long road of challenging medical treatments, we've had to push our marriage plans many times," they said. Speaking to People, the duo explained: "We felt it was finally the right time to celebrate love, life and happiness— in the land of the Gods."

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