'Who wants to bum everyone out?': Comedian Jessica St. Clair reveals her battle with breast cancer...a year after entering remission
Jessica St. Clair is a cancer survivor.
In an honest blog post for Stand Up 2 Cancer, the 40-year-old actress and comedienne revealed she'd recently battled breast cancer.
A year after completing her last course of chemotherapy, the Playing House star has decided to speak about her journey, confessing she didn't do so sooner because she didn't want to 'bum everyone out'.
Survivor: In an honest blog post for Stand Up 2 Cancer, Jessica St. Clair revealed she'd recently battled breast cancer
'I had breast cancer,' she wrote.
Jessica says she found a lump while feeding her then two-year-old daughter, Isobel O'Brien, breakfast one morning.
'I was 38 years old, with no family history (that I knew of at the time). I was feeding my daughter Cheerios the morning I found it,' she continued.
'I used to joke that since breastfeeding my boobs looked like an old athletic sock with some loose change at the bottom, so when I felt a lump the size of a marble I knew something was terribly wrong.'
Health scare: Jessica says she found a lump while feeding her then two-year-old daughter, Isobel O'Brien, breakfast one morning
Support: The comedienne credits her best friend and Playing House co-star, Lennon Parham - who 'would pack me in ice' - with helping her through the ordeal
Jessica says she endured 16 rounds of chemotherapy, but thanks to the help and support of her husband of 11 years, writer Dan O'Brien, 43, and her best friend and Playing House co-star, Lennon Parham, 40 - who 'would pack me in ice' - she pulled through relatively unscathed.
'Did I still feel like I’d been run over by a Mack Truck? Absolutely. It’s chemo, after all,' she added.
'But all these "chemo hacks" made it possible for me to fake it enough that my daughter never knew I was sick, so she was never afraid. And for that, I am eternally grateful.'
Helping hand: 'We hope that by sharing my experience - our experience, Lennon and I - that somebody who is going through this process or helping their loved one through it might feel less alone,' she wrote
And in a case of art imitating life, Jessica says her Playing House character, Emma, gets diagnosed with breast cancer in the upcoming third season of the hit comedy series.
'We were worried about bringing such serious subject matter to a comedy show, but we’ve always written what we’ve lived,' she wrote. 'And our real story is that with the help of her best friend, and the people who love her, my character is able to get through the treatment and actually emerge somehow happier and more fulfilled than she was before she was diagnosed.'
'We hope that by sharing my experience - our experience, Lennon and I - that somebody who is going through this process or helping their loved one through it might feel less alone, and might even have some better information for their cancer care.'
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