Johnny Ruffo: “I’m doing good, staying positive”

Former Home and Away star Johnny Ruffo today told Studio 10 about his recent health crisis, following a brain tumour that nearly took his life.

“I’m doing good. I finished my radio therapy treatment, so I have got a little bit of a break for 4 weeks before I start chemotherapy. But I’m feeling really good, staying positive,” he said.

“(The radiation) wasn’t too bad. I felt quite lethargic throughout it. During the days I was a bit tired, but I wasn’t nauseous, so I got through that fairly easy considering.”

Ruffo, 29, explained he had migraines leading up to the day before he went to hospital.

“I had a headache and it wouldn’t go away. I took Nurofen and Panadol and the normal procedures.

“It just wouldn’t go away. Then it started to really burn, almost like there was a fire in my head. I was taken to the emergency department.

“I wasn’t making any sense with my sentences…. which is probably normal anyhow!” he joked.

While the hospital also thought he was having a severe migraine and would improve by morning, the opposite happened.

“By morning I had slipped into a coma. From that alarm bells started ringing and they put me through an MRI and found out I had a tumour which was 7 centimetres, which is quite large,” he said.

Ruffo explained that from sitting on the couch to waking up he didn’t remember anything.

“When they told me it was a bit of a shock. For the first day or so I thought it was the end of it. They couldn’t remove the entire tumour. They could only remove 95%.”

Removing the remaining 5% could have caused paralysis down the left side of Ruffo’s body.

The Studio 10 team were impressed with Ruffo’s maturity, with Ruffo acknowledging it had changed his perspective.

“It’s definitely changed my outlook on life. Previously I was happy-go-lucky but now I want to focus on my career with music, acting and hosting.”

Ruffo, who is now an ambassador for Cure for Brain Cancer, has his next MRI on November 3rd and begins chemotherapy on November 8.