BLINK-182’s Mark Hoppus has shared details about his recent cancer diagnosis, including what type and stage he is currently battling.
The BLINK-182 singer/bassist answered questions during a Twitch Q+A, which took place on July 13. Hoppus revealed that he had been diagnosed in late April with stage 4-A Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, which is a type of cancer that his mother had previously battled and recovered from.
According to the Lymphoma Research Foundation, Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma is the most common type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma worldwide, and more than 18,000 people are diagnosed with the disease every year.
“It’s entered enough parts of my body that I’m stage 4, which is, I think the highest that it goes,” Mark said.
Mark also described his experiences with chemotherapy, comparing the sensation during the first round to that of being a zombie who was electrocuted by a fence or a taser. The second time around, he felt weak, and as if he had a bad case of the flu. His third time receiving chemotherapy is when he started experiencing nausea and sickness.
“Let me tell you something that is real, and it absolutely sucks — a side effect of the chemotherapy is you get something called ‘chemo brain.’ And for me, I forget things that I just should have on call like people’s names, song titles, anything,” he explained.
Earlier this week, Hoppus tweeted about a test he would be taking on July 14, which would potentially determine whether or not he is going to beat the disease. Mark touched more on that, saying: “The test is to find out if my chemotherapy is working at all. And if it is, then I go back for at least three more rounds. Ideally, I go in tomorrow and they say, ‘Congratulations! Your chemotherapy has worked and you are all done, and you’ll never have to think about this cancer again for the rest of your life.’ I hope.”
He continued: “If I go in tomorrow and they’re like, ‘It’s kinda working, we think it’s working,’ we’ll see. Then I’ll still do three more rounds, I think. And if they say, ‘Well it’s really not working like we’d hoped,’ then I have to go and talk about other options. Which I guess means a bone marrow transplant.”
“We’re beating this cancer,” he said. “It’s just a matter of time.”