NEW ORLEANS — “It's a very common cancer, which, but again, it's like you don't think of a pink elephant. Now that I hear about Myeloma, you hear it everywhere.”
That is what Young and The Restless star, Christian LeBlanc said Tuesday in his sit-down interview with WWL-TV’s Eric Paulsen.
The New Orleanian, Jesuit, and Tulane University alumnus shared how he was first diagnosed with a common blood cancer called Myeloma.
“I was diagnosed around June, Santa Monica, St. John's Hospital, which I'd never been to I'd never spent a day in the hospital in my 65 years until this year,” he said.
“I went in and already the signs, they put my wedding ring on, that Lauren and Michael's wedding ring, and I put my hand down and the ring fell off without friction and I thought what an odd thing. My nose started bleeding on set, this eye kind of got a little wonky, and there was a tumor in the sinus cavity.”
He said soon after the signs of cancer began to show, he went in for an eye exam which led to the cancer diagnosis.
“So, they found - and there was a chance that was a very serious cancer - there were options, they didn't know until after this surgery, but there was a tumor right here pressing on my optic nerve - but the fans caught it. I was getting - people like your eyes a little, little, Jim Carrey that way,” LeBlanc explained.
The three-time Emmy Awards winner said thanks to the fans and his doctor’s diagnosis he was able to get treatment for the fast-spreading cancer which is now in remission.
LeBlanc was a cast member of The Young and The Restless from 1991 to 1993 then rejoined the cast in 1997.
He first appeared on daytime television as Kirk McColl on As the World Turns and as a regular on the primetime series In the Heat of the Night. He has played the character Michael Baldwin on The Young and The Restless for over 30 years.
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