Young and the Restless star Eric Braeden is opening up about the symptoms that led to his cancer diagnosis.
In a recent Facebook post, the 82-year-old actor revealed he was diagnosed with cancer after he began to have problems with his prostate. His symptoms popped up shortly after he had knee replacement surgery a few months ago, Braeden recalled.
“Your prostate grows as you grow older. Period,” the German-born actor told his 132,000 Facebook followers. “Everything grows. … My prostate, I’d had some problems with it before. It manifests itself by you having to pee a lot. And it got to the point where I had to get up almost every half hour.”
Braeden eventually scheduled an appointment with a urologist, who recommended a procedure called a UroLift to help relieve his urinary symptoms. But by that point, he was having even more difficulty urinating, so the procedure was put on hold.
“The urination problem became so bad I couldn’t pee,” Braeden said. “And that, my friends, I can tell you, is one of the most painful experiences I’ve had.”
Instead, the doctor inserted a catheter for a few days so he could urinate pain-free. They also examined his bladder, which appeared fine at the time.
“This was six weeks or two months before something more serious happened,” he explained. “So… he didn’t relieve the problem, only momentarily, only symptomatically.”
One particularly painful night, Braeden opted to go to a different hospital. The doctor who examined him this time happened to be a UroLift pioneer. He also gave Braeden a catheter and examined his bladder.
“[He used] the same methodology used by the other urologist, but six weeks prior,” the actor explained. “And he looks at it … and he says, ‘That spot on the screen.’ He says, ‘You have cancer.’“