- Actor Stanley Tucci reveals he lost the ability to eat and taste while undergoing chemotherapy and radiation to treat oral cancer.
- Tucci admits he even struggled to eat while filming his food-focused CNN series Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy.
- The actor's latest book Taste: My Life Through Food, is out now.
Actor Stanley Tucci’s newest book Taste: My Life Through Food, out today, revealed additional details of his battle with oral cancer.
The 60-year-old recently opened up about his past cancer diagnosis in an interview with Vera, where he admitted that doctors found a tumor at the base of his tongue three years ago. To treat the large tumor, Tucci endured high-dose radiation and chemotherapy, which led to him needing a feeding tube for six months.
During radiation treatment, Tucci was strapped to a board in a New York hospital with a specially-made surgical mask covering his face to avoid movement, and a bite block in his mouth with just a small opening for him to breathe, he told The New York Times. “It was horrible,” Tucci said in the interview.
To make matters worse,The Devil Wears Prada star started experiencing vertigo after three radiation sessions (which can lead to nausea in and of itself). After just a week, his mouth began to fill with ulcers and anything he tasted was reminiscent of wet cardboard “slathered with someone’s excrement,” he said.
What Tucci most feared during this experience was losing his sense of taste forever. “I mean, if you can’t eat and enjoy food, how are you going to enjoy everything else?” he said in the interview.
But just because he couldn’t taste didn’t mean he stopped exploring his love for food. Even as the actor toured Italy as part of his six-part CNN series Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy, he struggled with eating—and was still recovering from the intense cancer treatments. “It was hard because I could taste everything, but I couldn’t necessarily swallow,” he said.
During one particular day of filming where Tucci found himself with the traditional Tuscan dish of Steak Florentina, he remembered, “I had to chew for 10 minutes to get it down my throat.” In other instances during filming, he admitted to just needing to get rid of the food altogether.
But Tucci was determined to complete the show despite these difficulties. “There was no way I wasn’t going to make it,” he told The New York Times. “I’ve wanted to tell for a long time the story of Italy and the disparate cuisine in every region.”
While recovering, Tucci even continued cooking for his loved ones. He once cooked risotto for his Supernova co-star Colin Firth, where Tucci was “convinced it tasted awful and was mortified,” Firth said, according to Tucci. “He simply wasn’t tasting what we were. One was left to imagine how distressing this was because most of the time he put on a very brave and matter-of-fact face.”
Tucci also turned to cooking shows during the difficult time in his life, and admits that it “was weird because even the smell of food then would just make me want to throw up. But I liked watching them,” he said. “I just wanted to learn more, live vicariously through them. It was a way I was going to have that once again.”
Now that the cancer is in remission, Tucci says there are some benefits to the situation. Since his radiation, he has found that he can digest lactose and sugar, which he previously had struggled with since his 20s. Though he doesn’t know why this change occurred. Meanwhile, he says he looks forward to eating all the foods that are still too difficult to eat very soon–like steak, sushi, and Pad Thai.
This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io
"eat" - Google News
October 06, 2021 at 01:33AM
https://ift.tt/3oAvwYd
Stanley Tucci Reveals He Struggled to Eat and Taste During Cancer Treatments - Prevention.com
"eat" - Google News
https://ift.tt/33WjFpI
https://ift.tt/2VWmZ3q
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Stanley Tucci Reveals He Struggled to Eat and Taste During Cancer Treatments - Prevention.com"
Post a Comment