Olivia Munn documented cancer journey for son to show him 'I tried my best' if she 'didn't make it'
Olivia Munn opened up about why she decided to document her cancer journey. Munn said that she wanted to show her son Malcolm that she "fought to be here" in case she "didn't make it."
Olivia Munn shared the heart-wrenching reason behind why she decided to document her cancer journey.
In 2022, the 43-year-old actress was diagnosed with Luminal B cancer, "an aggressive, fast moving cancer," in both breasts. After privately battling the disease, she announced her breast cancer diagnosis and revealed that she underwent a double mastectomy in a March Instagram post.
During a Thursday interview with "Good Morning America," Munn recalled that her first thought was of her son Malcolm, 2, when she received her diagnosis.
"Cancer is the — that’s the word you don't want to hear," she told host Michael Strahan. "There’s a lot of other things that you feel like you can beat, but you know cancer takes down a lot of people. And I just thought about my baby."
"The Newsroom" star shares Malcolm with her partner John Mulaney, 41.
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When asked why she "wanted to document" her journey, Munn explained that it was for Malcolm.
"Well because if I didn’t make it, I wanted my son when he got older to know that I fought to be here," she said.
"That I tried my best," Munn added. "You want the people in your life, you want the people that maybe don't understand what's going on right to know that you did everything you could to be here."
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As part of her treatment, Munn underwent therapy that suppressed the hormones which enabled the cancer to grow but put her body into medically induced menopause.
The "Magic Mike" actress explained that the effects of the treatment left her weak and made it difficult to function.
"The hormone suppression therapy is brutal and it gave me next level debilitating exhaustion," Munn said. "I was just in bed all day long, all day long, and my quality of life was so minimal and I wasn’t able to be there for my baby."
Munn told Strahan that she decided to take action after Malcolm noticed the change in her.
"Whenever Malcolm would come into the home he’d run straight to my bed because that's where he knows I am, like that’s what he associated with me," she recalled.
"And that was just too difficult for me to take," Munn said. "I had to find out if there was another option."
Munn said that she opted to get a hysterectomy and ovariectomy, marking her fifth surgery since receiving her diagnosis.
"Almost immediately after that, my energy just came back full force," she said.
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However, Munn and Mulaney were still hoping to expand their family so she decided to freeze her eggs ahead of getting the procedures.
"Right after the double mastectomy, I went through a round of egg retrieval," she said.
"That’s a scary process because I have a cancer that feeds off of hormones so I knew there was a risk and our doctor said, 'Look we’re gonna get one for you and then we’re gonna call it,' " she explained. "And then our doctor called and he said, 'Hey we got the results back. It’s two healthy embryos,' and I— I mean we just started bawling, crying, both of us."
"We really just hope that it works out for us to be able to have another baby," she added. "I just want one more. I'm not going to ask for too much more in this life, I promise. I just want one more baby."
Munn said that her doctor recommended that she start taking another medication soon that will suppress the production of hormones that could grow cancer in other parts of her body.
The actress admitted that she questioned whether she was willing to undergo another treatment.
"I have been so aggressive," she said. "I did everything they told me to do. I did all the big surgeries. And now I'm saying, 'Do I have to do this extra drug?'"
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"It’s so tiring," Munn explained. "These drugs are so tiring, and I know I’m gonna stay aggressive. I know I’m going to do it. I’m just surprised that I’m even asking for anything less than aggressive because, I mean as you know, it just feels nonstop."
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"Because it is nonstop," she added.
Munn also shared what she had learned about herself and her priorities during her battle with cancer.
"I'm a lot braver than I thought I was," she said.
"And I learned that the most important thing to me in life is my family," Munn continued. "Everything else can go away, I don't have my career, I don't have my body the way that it looked before, but as long as the people that I love and care about are here and healthy and thriving nothing else matters."