Before becoming a father for the first time, actor Mark Ruffalo had to deal with the diagnosis of a brain tumor. The actor opened up about his withdrawal and the process of deciding to tell his wife of 20 years.
In a podcast interview Smartless, from actors Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Anertt, Ruffalo talked about when he discovered the tumor 20 years ago. According to Ruffalo, he had a dream that he had a tumor on his head when his wife, Sunrise Coigney, was about to give birth – and the dream proved true.
“It was a crazy dream, you know, unlike any other I’ve had,” he reported. “It was like the knowledge of this: ‘You have a brain tumor and you need to deal with it immediately.'”
Ruffalo didn't have any symptoms when he saw a doctor, driven by the strange dream and a sense of “doom,” just in case. After undergoing tests, he says that he saw the nurse calling the doctor and that the two talked in another room.
“She then comes, and she's like a zombie,” says Mark Ruffalo. “And she says, 'You have a mass behind your left ear the size of a golf ball and we don't know what it is. We need to do a biopsy.”
As the actor's wife was about to have the baby, he decided to hide the preliminary test results. “She had plans to give birth, she did yoga, she already had a doula, we asked for a hot tub [para o parto]”, said. “It's like her wedding, you know? It's the first communion, the 15th birthday party, and I thought, 'I can't [contar]'.”
The tumor was, fortunately, benign – that is, it is non-invasive and can be removed by surgery. The star known for playing the Hulk and for his role in “De Repente 30” eventually told his wife about the discovery of the tumor a week after the birth of the couple's son, when Ruffalo was already ready for treatment.
“When I told Sunny, she thought I was joking,” Ruffalo said. “Then she started crying and said, 'I always knew you would die young'.”
The surgery to remove the tumor had a 20% chance of hitting a nerve on the left side of the actor's face and a 70% chance of him losing hearing in his left ear. According to the report, Mark Ruffalo woke up completely deaf in one ear – which still bothers him. The initial facial paralysis resolved one year after surgery.
Ruffalo said that, in the moment, he remembers thinking, “You can take my hearing, but let me keep my face and let me be a father to these kids.” Ruffalo and Coigney are parents to children: Keen (20 years old), Bella (18) and Odette (16).
The star received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor last Tuesday (23). He was recognized for his work on “Poor Creatures.”
Source: CNN Brasil
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