Edward James Olmos Reveals Secret Cancer Battle

Edward James Olmos has revealed his secret cancer battle.

The actor went on Mando Fresko's podcast Mando & Friends, where he spoke about his cancer diagnosis. "

"This would be the first time publicly I'll be coming out and saying it, but I had throat cancer," said the Miami Vice star. "I just finished getting through it. December 20 was my last radiation and the week before I'd finished my chemo."

He added, "I still have a bump where my lymph nodes were. They burned them out. They shot this area with radiation. The doctors would say—I had five doctors—the doctors would say right before I started this [treatment], 'There's only one thing we have to tell you: We do not know what you're gonna sound like.' I said, 'What?!' [They told me], 'We're shooting your vocal cords. We're shooting your throat, where you eat, swallow, where you talk, breathe…everything goes through here.'"

Olmos continued, "A lot of my friends have passed because of this [form of cancer]. It's a very strong disease. Cancer is, period. But in the throat, it's…oof. It took a while, months and months."

He shared that one of the things he did, which he was "very happy" about, was being conditioned to "fight this."

"I swim a mile a day at least, sometimes two miles a day. Every day, seven days a week. And then I row and I do weights. But the main thing is rowing and swimming, so I was in good shape," said Olmos. "Right now, I lost 55 pounds and lost all my muscle, so in the last four months I've been coming back slowly."

The actor also opened up about his biggest struggles amid his cancer diagnosis, explaining, "There were times in the months that I was undergoing the treatments that the body gives up. And I didn’t want to take my food through my stomach. They wanted to put tubes in and feed me nutrients because I couldn’t swallow." His daughter-in-law, who works as an immigration attorney and is married to Olmos' son Mico, made him shakes and nutrient drinks, which helped him maintain nourishment.

Olmos said that having cancer "was an experience that changed me, the understanding of how wonderful this life is. I've been through some experiences that have gotten me close to death but that was close."