Jeff Bridges’ health journey has been nothing short of a challenge.
The 73-year-old—who first made his cancer diagnosis public in October 2020, just months before developing COVID-19—is reflecting on his road to recovery.
“A lot of getting better was a matter of setting really small goals. At first they’d say, ‘How long can you stand?’ For a while, my record was 45 seconds before I’d collapse,” he told AARP in a new interview, published May 23. “And then they were saying: ‘Oh, look, you’re standing for a minute! That’s so cool, now can you walk 5 feet?'”
The Big Lebowski actor—whose tumor has shrunk “to the size of a marble”—went on to note that having his immune system stripped due to the cancer treatment made fighting COVID “really, really tough.”
“For me,” Jeff told the outlet, “cancer was nothing compared to the COVID.”
“I remember the doctor saying to me, ‘Jeff, you’ve got to fight. You’re not fighting,'” he recalled. “But I didn’t get it anymore. I just didn’t know how to do that. I was in surrender mode. I’d say to myself, ‘Everybody dies, and this is me dying.’ And I’d hear myself go, ‘Oh, well, here we are, on to the next adventure.'”
