Full House alum Dave Coulier is recalling the toughest parts of his cancer treatment after receiving a diagnosis late last year.
The American actor learned he had Stage 3 non-Hodgkin lymphoma in November — a type of cancer that affects the lymphatic and immune systems — revealing that he first noticed symptoms in October after contracting a respiratory infection that caused swelling in his lymph nodes around his groin and armpits.
“It swelled up immediately,” Coulier told Today in November. “I thought, ‘Wow, I’m either really sick, or my body’s really reacting to something.”
Subsequent scans, along with a biopsy, led to a diagnosis. Within three days, Coulier was in treatment.
He provided an update near the end of last year, telling NBC’s Today that in the five weeks following his diagnosis, he had undergone three surgeries, begun chemo and lost some of his hair.
Coulier fell ill again after completing a sixth and final round of chemotherapy in late February, telling Parade magazine that in the depths of treatment, it’s hard not to contemplate death.
“I started to get pretty sick,” he told the publication, “I didn’t know that I had caught a virus. I was in bed for about 10 days just trying to figure out, ‘Do I have a cold? Am I just feeling the ramifications of this cumulative effect of the chemo? What is going on?’”
In a similar turn of events that led to his initial diagnosis, Coulier’s recent illness, which he had presumed was another cold, was caused by “deposits” in his lungs.
“There’s a thing called [ground-glass opacity (GGO)]. On a scan, in your lungs it looks like particles of glass,” Coulier told Parade.
That, coupled with a cold, he says, “was wreaking havoc in my system.”
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His wife, Melissa Coulier, insisted he visit the doctor for a check-up. If she had not, Coulier said he may never have recovered.
These complications made it difficult for him to celebrate the wins, including when he completed his final round of chemo.
“I was in such a daze when I walked out of the hospital, my wife looked at me [when] we got in the car, and she goes, ‘We forgot to ring the bell,’” he said.
Coulier explained that with each treatment, the side effects were exacerbated. He described feeling nauseated and experiencing neuropathy — a type of nerve damage and well-documented side effect of chemotherapy that causes numbness, pain and tingling, often in the hands and feet.
“Nausea started to increase. Dizziness started to increase. They call it chemo brain, where you’re a bit foggy — that started to increase. My days of being able to get up and walk around and be active started to decrease,” he said.
Some days, he was unable to get out of bed.
“I wanted to move around and go out and, you know, work around the house, I just couldn’t. There was so much cancer-related fatigue that got progressively worse and worse and worse, and I thought, ‘Wow, this is how it’s going to go,’” he continued.
Coulier went on to credit his wife of 11 years for taking care of everything from his diet to changing his bed sheets and managing his meds.
“Seeing my wife exhausted on those days when I’m like, ‘Can you get me some water?’ and ‘I haven’t taken my pills yet’… She’s been running ragged, helping me. That’s the picture that will stay with me — how this affects your family members,” Coulier said. “People who go through this know exactly what I’m talking about.”
He also mentioned his friend John Stamos, who faced backlash in November for a photo he shared with Coulier sporting a bald cap in a gesture of solidarity.
“I think people misunderstood my personal relationship with my buddy John Stamos,” Coulier said.
“He knows what makes me laugh, and when he walked out like that, I fell on the floor laughing. It wasn’t us making fun of others so much as it was: Let’s laugh our way through this because this is a tough journey,” he explained, adding that Stamos calls him almost daily to check in.
Coulier’s family has weathered numerous health-related family tragedies over the years.
His mother, Arlen, died from breast cancer at age 82. His sister Sharon died from breast cancer at 36, as did his niece Shannon at 29.
His father, David, died in 2022 at 91 years old, shortly after Coulier’s brother Dan committed suicide in 2021, close to his 59th birthday. His older sister, Karen, is also living with cancer.
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