Mark Ruffalo recalls getting diagnosed with a ‘golf-sized’ tumor… days before his wife gave birth to their first child

Mark Ruffalo recalled learning in 2001 that he had a golf-sized brain tumor after a disturbing dream.

While appearing on Monday’s episode of the SmartLess podcast With hosts Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett, the actor, 56, described having “a brain tumor after the success of You Can Count on Me.”

After suffering a nightmare that was ‘so intense’ it prompted him to have a CAT scan to ‘deal with it immediately’, the father-of-three revealed he left with a ‘feeling of foreboding’ doctor had gone.

‘The nurse calls the doctor, I could hear them talking in the other room. She comes in, looking a bit like a zombie, and says, “You have a mass behind your left ear the size of a golf ball, and we don’t know what it is. We won’t know until it’s biopsied,” he told listeners.

Prior to his diagnosis, the only symptom he suffered from was an ear infection.

Although the tumor was fortunately benign, Ruffalo, who was 33, had to undergo surgery to remove the mass.

At the time, his wife Sunrise Coigney was due to give birth to their first child, son Keen, now 22, any day now.

To avoid upsetting her, he waited until the birth of their little one to break the news.

“When I told Sunny about it, at first she thought I was joking,” he said. “And then she burst into tears and said, ‘I always knew you would die young.’

The day after informing his wife, he met with a neurologist to work out a treatment plan and have the tumor surgically removed.

The four-time Academy Award nominee, who has gained international recognition since 2012 for playing The Hulk in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, noted that surgery risks include a 20 percent chance of “killing” the nerve on the left side of his face and a 70 percent chance of “killing” the nerve on the left side of his face. percent chance of losing hearing in that ear.

“(I’m) completely deaf in one ear, and when I woke up the left side of my face was completely paralyzed,” he recalls. ‘I couldn’t even close my eye. I was talking out of the side of my mouth.”

While appearing on Monday’s episode of the SmartLess podcast with hosts Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett, the actor, 56, described having “a brain tumor after the success of You Can Count on Me” (pictured at the time in March 2001)

After having a dream ‘so intense’ that prompted him to get a CAT scan to ‘deal with it immediately’, the father-of-three recalled going to the doctor with an ‘ominous feeling’ gone (pictured in 2000).

After a year the paralysis disappeared, but the hearing loss remained.

He and his wife eventually welcomed two more children, Bella Noche, 18, and Odette, 16.

After the surgery, he became one of the few performers to be nominated for all four major United States Entertainment Awards (EGOT).

Throughout his career, he has won two Emmy Awards, a Grammy nomination, four Oscar nominations and a Tony Award nomination.