Why Mark Ruffalo Waited WEEKS to Tell His Wife About His Brain Tumor _ E! News
Why Mark Ruffalo Waited WEEKS to Tell His Wife About His Brain Tumor _ E! News
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00:00 "Yeah, I had a brain tumor after the success of You Can Count On Me.
00:07 My son, Sunrise, was like nine and a half months pregnant, and the baby was eminently
00:16 coming."
00:18 Mark Ruffalo is opening up about a terrifying health scare he experienced over 20 years
00:24 ago.
00:25 During an appearance on the January 22 episode of The Smart List podcast, hosted by Jason
00:32 Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett, the Poor Things actor recalls finding out that
00:37 he had a large mass behind his left ear.
00:41 "I woke up probably around three and I just had this crazy dream and it wasn't like any
00:48 other dream I'd ever had.
00:49 It was just like, 'You have a brain tumor.'
00:51 It wasn't even a voice.
00:53 It was just pure knowledge.
00:55 You have a brain tumor and you have to deal with it immediately."
01:00 He goes on to explain that the dream was so intense and had a sense of doom that it scared
01:06 him enough to immediately see a doctor after the dream.
01:10 "And so I went to the cast doctor the next day and I said, 'Listen, this is going to
01:16 sound crazy.
01:17 I had this dream last night that I had a brain tumor.'
01:23 That is crazy, but there's no reason that you should have to worry about it.
01:33 I'll order you a CAT scan and we'll go right after work today.'
01:37 And I went and then we went up to the neurologist's office who's going to read the scan and the
01:43 nurse calls the doctor out.
01:47 I could hear them talking in the other room.
01:49 She comes in and she's just kind of like a zombie.
01:53 And she says, 'You have a mass behind your left ear the size of a golf ball.'
02:01 And yeah, we don't know what it is.
02:05 We can't tell until it's biopsied."
02:07 The growth, which turned out to be a benign tumor, was a secret that Mark decided to keep
02:13 to himself for weeks.
02:15 His wife, Sunrise Coigney, whom he married in 2000, was just days away from giving birth
02:22 to their first child, son Keen, who is now 22 years old.
02:27 "Like a few days, like a week after the baby, I had to go in and meet the neurologist and
02:32 decide what I was going to do."
02:34 "And had you told Sunny yet?"
02:35 "I hadn't told her."
02:36 "No way.
02:37 What a thing to sit on."
02:38 "Until the night before."
02:39 "Dude."
02:41 Mark shares that doctors warned him there was a 20% chance of affecting the nerve on
02:46 the left side of his face, as well as a 70% chance that he would lose hearing in that
02:52 ear, which he eventually did.
02:54 "I think I might have left."
02:55 "So they took it out.
02:56 It was benign, but it left you a little deaf in your ear, right?"
03:00 "Not a little, just totally."
03:02 "Totally.
03:03 Really?
03:04 Completely deaf in one ear?"
03:05 "Completely left deaf in one ear.
03:06 And when I woke up, the left side of my face was totally paralyzed."
03:09 "Oh."
03:10 Thankfully, Mark and Sunny went on to welcome two more children, daughters Bella, now 18,
03:18 and Odette, 16.
03:19 "I'm so happy for you."
03:30 (upbeat music)
03:33 (upbeat music)