Shannen Doherty gave an update on her breast cancer fight on Tuesday, and sadly, the 90210 alum said that the disease had spread to her brain. “January 12, 2023,” Shannen, 52, captioned the Instagram video she posted on June 6, detailing her undergoing radiation treatment. “On January 5th, my CT scan showed Mets [metastasis] in my brain. Yesterday’s video was showing the process of getting fitted for the mask which you wear during radiation to your brain. January 12, the first round of radiation took place.”
In the video, Shannen lays back as the treatment begins. Her eyes are watery as the tech informs her of the steps of the process. “My fear is obvious,” she captioned the video. “I am extremely claustrophobic, and there was a lot going on in my life. I am fortunate as I have great doctors like Dr. Amin Mirahdi and the amazing techs at [Cedars-Sinai]. But that fear…. The turmoil….. the timing of it all…. This is what cancer can look like.”
Shannen was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015. She claimed that her dog, Bowie, was instrumental in detecting the disease. “She would obsessively sniff right here on my right side for a long time before,” she said in 2016, per CBS News. “So, it made sense when I got diagnosed.” She was diagnosed in 2015, and a year later, she said the disease spread to her lymph nodes.
In May 2016, she underwent a single mastectomy. “When I got back from surgery, [Bowie] again was kind of right in this area,” she said, gesturing to her side. “Then, when I had my first chemo, she would sniff my entire body up and down. And she was always protective before, but she has become this crazy, protective dog. It’s hard to get close to me when she’s around.”
In February 2020, Shannen revealed that her cancer had returned and progressed to stage IV. “A lot of people who get diagnosed with Stage IV, they sort of get written off,” she said at the time. “It’s assumed that they cannot work or they can’t work at their full capacity, and that is not true. That is something that I would really like for people to stop assuming and give us a chance to prove them wrong.”
A year later, she marked Breast Cancer Awareness Month by showing her bald head as a way to document her own personal journey. “Is it all pretty?” she wrote. “NO, but it’s truthful, and my hope in sharing is that we all become more educated, more familiar with what cancer looks like,” she said. “I hope I encourage people to get mammograms, to get regular checkups, to cut thru the fear and face whatever might be in front of you.”