After 3rd Cancer Diagnosis, Grease Star Turns to 'Modern' Meds

Olivia Newton-John uses cannabis oil to help relieve pain after tumor found at base of her spine
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 10, 2018 8:17 AM CDT

In a secret she kept "from almost everyone," Olivia Newton-John was diagnosed with cancer in her shoulder five years ago—more than 20 years after she was first diagnosed with breast cancer, CNN notes. Now, just weeks shy of her 70th birthday, the Australian singer and actress reveals in an interview with Seven's Sunday Night she's been hit with a third cancer diagnosis. Newton-John says she was told last year she had cancer at the base of her spine, and she's been treating it since by completely cutting sugar out of her diet, as well as with natural remedies and "modern" meds, including cannabis oil as a pain reliever, per the Independent.

"I'm very lucky that I live in a state where it's legal and that I have a husband that is a plant-medicine man," she says of spouse John Easterling, who grows cannabis on their California ranch. And she's hoping her native home will soon be able to take advantage of marijuana's benefits as well. "My dream is that in Australia soon it will be available to all the cancer patients and people going through cancer or any kind of disease that causes pain," she says. She notes her husband has been her rock through it all and that "I believe I will win over it." As for why she kept her second bout with cancer on the down-low: "I thought ... 'it's my life' and I just decided to keep it to myself." (More Olivia Newton-John stories.)

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