'Rocky' star Dolph Lundgren is 'finally cancer free' after 9-year journey
"Rocky IV" star Dolph Lundgren is celebrating his health this holiday season.
The Swedish-born actor posted an update from his hospital bed before surgery earlier this week, announcing he is "finally cancer free with gratefulness and excitement for a bright future."
In the video, Lundgren said, "Here I am at UCLA, I’m about to go in and get rid of that last tumor. Since there are no cancer cells in my body anymore, I guess I’ll be cancer-free so I’m looking forward to this procedure."
He explained he was undergoing a lung ablation, a minimally invasive procedure that uses heating or cooling mechanisms to destroy tumor tissue, per the Mayo Clinic.
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"It’s been a rough ride and really taught me how to live in the moment and enjoy every moment of life. I mean, it’s the only way to go," Lundgren said before signing off to head into surgery.
On Wednesday in his Instagram story, the actor shared a brief update, writing, "Thank you for all of your wonderful messages and supportive comments."
"It’s gonna take a little more to break me," he added, with a winking emoji, a nod to his famous line in "Rocky IV" when he tells Sylvester Stallone, "I must break you."
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Lundgren was first diagnosed with cancer in 2015 when doctors found a tumor in his kidney. The doctors were able to remove the tumor, and he remained cancer-free for five years.
During the interview on "In Depth With Graham Bensinger," he revealed doctors found a "few more tumors around the area" in 2020 and removed six additional tumors, but one had grown into the "size of a lemon" in his liver, and doctors were unable to remove it.
"It wasn't looking good," told Fox News Digital in January of this year. "I mean, there was a doctor in London who basically told me you should stop working and spend more time with your family. Then I realized it was serious."
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However, the "Universal Solider" star later learned his doctors were "giving me the wrong treatments because they hadn't really checked on all the biopsies."
"I got a second opinion from a UCLA doctor, and she went back and looked at all the biopsies, and she said, ‘Well, you know, this is a different mutation than what they said,’" Lundgren recalled.
"They hadn't checked it. They just assumed. As soon as I got the new medication, I started getting better. And that was all [2022]."
"And then last year, I removed all those tumors," Lundgren recalled. "They freeze them out or use radiation. And then, you know, now I'm living a normal life, I would say. Except I gotta go and do a scan every three months. But everything else is kind of back to normal. So, it was scary and magical at the same time."
Fox News Digital’s Ashley Hume and Larry Fink contributed to this report.