Pauly Shore is still reeling after discovering he had a benign tumor inside his pancreas during a preventive body scan several months ago.
The “Encino Man” star, 57, told fans about his health scare in a Wednesday Instagram video, which captured him right before surgery and several weeks after.
Recording from a hospital bed, Shore explained how he decided to get a preventive scan on a whim, only to learn he had a small tumor that doctors told him could have been in his body for as long as “15 to 20 years.”
“It’s like a devil that’s in me,” he joked to a nurse in his pre-op message. “Get it out.”
Though the tumor didn’t pose an immediate emergency, the actor said his diagnosis had an intense affect on his mental health.
“It really messed with me,” he wrote in his Instagram caption. “Knowing there was a tumor inside me… Could it grow? Burst? Turn into something worse? You just don’t know.”
Shore’s video continued with an update from five days after his surgery, when he revealed that the “little gremlin” in his body had been successfully removed.
While urging followers to invest in a preventive body scan, he also told fans to trust their “instincts,” which he said inspired his decision to get checked out, even though he was in good health.
“My advice to anyone watching this is to get a scan, ’cause you never know what the fuck’s inside your body, ’cause I didn’t know,” he said.
As he continued to address the camera, Shore broke down in tears.
“It’s been tough,” he said, calling the “aftermath” of abdominal surgery “pretty hard.”
According to the National Institutes of Health, pancreatic tumors are often discovered after a CT or MRI scan, since they usually don’t cause clear symptoms in the early stages. For people with a strong family history or genetic risk factors, doctors may recommend regular imaging to catch signs of disease earlier.