Mark Ruffalo was diagnosed with a brain tumor and the path that led to his examination is rather unusual.
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It's been more than twenty years and the Avengers star sought medical attention after a very unusual dream. “I woke up around 3am and had a crazy dream. It wasn't a dream like any other,” he told Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett during the SmartLess show on Monday, January 22 (2024).
And for good reason: the dream was not an isolated one, but a confirmation. “You have a brain tumor,” it said, and the actor clarifies: “It wasn't even a voice.” It was just pure knowledge: “You have a brain tumor and you need to take care of it immediately.”
The next day, Mark Ruffalo went to the doctor who scanned him. When she comes in after the exam “looking a bit like a zombie,” she tells him the diagnosis: “You have a mass on your left ear that's the size of a golf ball.” We don't know what it is. We can't know until there's a biopsy.
Then began a period of uncertainty and worry that he revealed to no one, not even to his wife Sunrise, who was about to give birth to their first child. When he finally confided in her what was going to happen the day before his surgery, her reaction was surprising. “At first she thought I was joking, then she burst into tears and said to me, 'I always knew you would die young,'” he said.
Fortunately, the tumor was removed and found to be benign. The operation left Mark Ruffalo, now 56, deaf in his left ear. The actor did not reveal whether he had any further premonitions.