Olivia Williams is speaking out about her battle with cancer, revealing that she’ll never be completely cancer-free due to a late diagnosis.
The actress—known for her roles in The Crown, The Sixth Sense, Dune: Prophecy, and The Ghost Writer—shared her story in a recent interview with The Times.
She explained that for four years, she went to ten different doctors trying to get answers for her symptoms, which included constant fatigue, body aches, and chronic diarrhea.
At first, she was wrongly told she had lupus or was going through perimenopause. One doctor even suggested she needed a psychiatric evaluation.
Eventually, a rare cancerous tumor was found in her pancreas, but by then it was too late for a simple fix. “If someone had diagnosed me properly in those four years, one operation might have removed everything and I could say I was cancer-free—but I can’t,” she said.
Now, Olivia is raising awareness about pancreatic cancer and supporting Pancreatic Cancer UK. She’s had multiple procedures to treat the tumor, but because it was found so late, the cancer spread to her liver. New cancer spots continue to appear, and she describes the process as a game of “whack-a-mole.”
“I go in hopeful every time, but then get hit with more bad news,” she said. “They’ve found new tumors just before Christmas or during summer holidays. For three years, they showed up too close to major blood vessels to treat. So we just had to watch them grow—which was terrifying.”
Over the past two years, Olivia has undergone four rounds of Lutathera, a special form of internal radiation therapy. “I go to King’s College Hospital, and people in hazmat suits bring in a lead box with radioactive material. They inject it into me, and I literally become radioactive,” she explained. The treatment is meant to give her a break from cancer for maybe a year or more, though it hasn’t made the tumors disappear.
Despite everything, she continues to fight—and hopes that by sharing her story, she can help others catch pancreatic cancer earlier.
Olekanma Favour is a resourceful, self-motivated, and result-driven writer with a passion for crafting compelling narratives and insightful content. She loves tackling complex topics and weaving engaging stories.
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