John Blackman considers himself the ‘luckiest person on earth’ despite cancer battle

Beloved Australian entertainer John Blackman has opened up about the aggressive surgery he underwent in his battle against cancer.

In 2018, the Hey Hey It’s Saturday star was diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma, a rare and aggressive type of skin cancer, which had formed on his chin.

The star had to undergo a 10-hour long operation to remove his jaw and replace it with a leg bone.

My journey towards becoming George Clooney’s stunt double for all his love scenes (or the part of Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz) continued today at Linacre Private Hospital. Huge thanks to all the wonderful staff and my plastic surgeon Doctor Frank! pic.twitter.com/9Xta5eDB3E

— JohnBlackman (@johnblackmanhey) May 11, 2020

In a recent interview with the You Cannot Serious podcast, Blackman opened up about his surgery and offered further details regarding his diagnosis.

“I had a little pimple under my skin, you scratch at it and it turned out it was a BCC,’’ Blackman said.

“SCC (squamous cell carcinoma) is the most deadly thing you can get on your chin apart from a pimple. Over time it rotted my chin and it was hideous.

“They said it was really aggressive and it was about to eat away the rest of my face and eventually get to my brain and I’d be brown bread.

“Another aggressive SCC started growing in a crater that was created when they removed one minor one and it was heading towards my brain. There’s the skin, then there’s the scalp, then there’s your brain. What this was doing was very aggressive and it was starting to go through what’s left of my meniscus.”

Despite how “aggressive” the cancer was and the gruelling surgery that followed, Blackman has managed to look on the bright side and regards himself “as the luckiest person on earth”.

“Adversity, doesn’t matter how important or smart you think you are, everyone has some sort of adversity in their life,” he said.

After his own difficult battle with cancer, Blackman has previously offered his insight into John Farnham’s road to recovery after the singing icon received his own shock cancer diagnosis

Blackman revealed that he cried when he heard about the entertainment legend’s diagnosis.

As reported by 7News, Blackman said his fellow entertainer has a tough, lengthy recovery ahead.

“Hopefully John will get through this with as little angst as possible, and he’s going to need all the support he can get,” Blackman said.

“I know his family is very loving and they’re all going to gather around him.”

As Blackman has kept his fans up to date with his recovery, Farnham’s family have kept Australians updated on his health battle since announcing the singer had been hospitalised on August 23, after doctors discovered a tumour in his mouth.