Val Kilmer received heartbreaking diagnosis after waking up in 'pool of his own blood'

ok.co.uk:

Tributes to Val Kilmer have continued to flood in hours after his death as it emerged he once woke up in a "pool of his own blood" during a heartbreaking health battle.The actor, famed for appearing in Batman Forever, Top Gun and The Saint, died from pneumonia earlier on Tuesday at the age of 65.

He also shone in The Doors and shared the screen with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in Michael Mann's Heat in 1995. Although he beat throat cancer after being diagnosed in 2014, a trachea surgery resulted in the loss of his voice, having a devastating impact on his illustrious film career.

In a revealing 2020 feature in The New York Times Magazine, journalist Taffy Brodesser-Akner explored Val's struggle with cancer, including distressing details such as him waking up in a "pool of his own blood" and having difficulty swallowing. "As near as I can tell, in 2014, as he was touring with Citizen Twain, Kilmer found himself in Nashville with a big lump in his throat.

He was having a hard time swallowing. He cancelled the show," she said. "He'd been having symptoms for a while and had woken up in a pool of his own blood a time or two back in Malibu.