- The Crown actress Olivia Williams opened up about her 2018 cancer diagnosis in an interview published in The Times on April 19
- Williams revealed she was misdiagnosed for four years until a doctor discovered a tumor on her pancreas, at which point the cancer had already spread
- The actress, 56, is now pushing for accessible early detection methods so that others don’t go through what she is experiencing
Olivia Williams revealed she will never be “cancer-free” — and she said years of misdiagnoses are to blame.
The Crown actress opened up about her four-year health mystery, which resulted in a pancreatic cancer diagnosis in 2018 when she was 46, in an interview with the U.K.’s The Times published on Saturday, April 19.
Williams, now 56, noted that she experienced aching limbs, fatigue and chronic diarrhea for years — and had visited 10 doctors in three different countries in a search for answers. She told the outlet that she had been misdiagnosed with everything from Lupus to IBS to perimenopause until a doctor in Los Angeles discovered a VIPoma, a rare tumor, on her pancreas.
“If someone had f—— well diagnosed me in the four years I’d been saying I was ill, when they told me I was menopausal or had irritable bowel syndrome or [was] crazy — I used that word advisedly because one doctor referred me for a psychiatric assessment — then one operation possibly could have cleared the whole thing and I could describe myself as cancer-free, which I cannot now ever be,” she told The Times.
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The Sixth Sense actress explained that by the time doctors removed the tumor, it had already spread to her liver, “which, as anyone involved in the cancer life knows, is the worst news.”
Williams added that she now gets “zapped by microwave ablation” to treat recurring metastasized cancer cells in her body. “We’ve been playing whack-a-mole every time they appear,” she said.
“I go in like a puppy with this optimistic, bright face and then they give me bad news,” she told the outlet while recounting her regular checkups.
She continued: “And it’s like, oh my God, I fell for it again. They’ve found new metastases pretty well either just before Christmas or in the middle of a summer holiday. Then, for three years in a row, they started appearing too close to major blood vessels to zap. So there was a period when we were just sitting and watching them grow, which is a horrible feeling.”
However, the Rushmore actress says she’s not looking for sympathy; instead, she is pushing for the development of a “cheap, early test” to detect pancreatic cancer so others don’t go through what she is experiencing.
“The average time from diagnosis to death [for pancreatic cancer] is three months — and that figure has not improved in 50 years,” she explained. “It takes an average person with my cancer 11 visits to the GP to be diagnosed. For me it was probably about 21 times.”
“Because it’s so quick and so shocking, people tend to liken losing someone to this cancer to losing them in a car crash,” she continued. “What could change that is early detection with a test that could be as simple as breathing into a bag at your GP. We’re incredibly close, we just need to get it over the line.”
Williams is currently supporting the London Marathon’s charity of the year, Pancreatic Cancer UK, in order to help generate funding for the cause.
When it comes to her day-to-day, the actress shared that she tries to stay as busy as possible with work between treatments. A mother of two daughters, ages 20 and 17, Williams also shared that she tries to maintain gratitude for her body — and does hot yoga whenever possible.
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“You have to stand in the sweaty room and look at yourself in a mirror for an hour and a half,” she told the outlet.
“Obviously, I see all those signs of aging and bad living and think how much better I could look if I didn’t eat so many chips and drink so much wine. But I also look in awe at my body — I think, what you have been through and you can still put your foot over your head. You can still walk and run and eat. It’s a miracle.”
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