‘I SURVIVED CANCER TWICE’ Kathy Bates’ incredible tale of triumph
After overcoming ovarian and breast cancer, the actress opens up about facing her biggest health battle yet
In 2003, during a holiday in the South of France, Kathy Bates was feeling exhausted but chalked it up to a heatwave. “I thought, ‘ Well it’s the heat, I’m tired, whatever!’” says the Misery Oscar winner, now 70. But when she got home, a trip to the doctor revealed she had a mass on her right ovary. Bates, then 55, had stage 1 ovarian cancer. She immediately had surgery, followed by nine months of chemotherapy, but didn’t reveal her illness to the public.“i didn’t tell anybody,” she says. “I continued to work right after the operation, doing Little Black Book with Brittany Murphy. My agent at the time was very old-school and didn’t want me to be the poster child for ovarian cancer. I didn’t want anyone to know, but it really took a lot out of me.”
It wasn’t the only time Bates would face down cancer. In 2012, the Memphis native, who is well known for her roles in Dolores Claiborne, Fried Green Tomatoes and Titanic, was once again hit with extreme exhaustion and returned to her doctor for an MRI. She was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a double mastectomy because of her family history with the illness. “My aunt had died from it, my mother had it, my niece had it,” she says. She tested negative for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutation that increases a woman’s risk of breast and ovarian cancer, but as she says, a negative BRCA result is “not a get out of jail free card.”
Still, though her surgery was successful, she notes it was an isolating experience. “Even though your family is there for you and cares for you, it becomes a solitary journey,” says Bates. “I ended up going to chemo by myself.” And she continued to work, starring in Feud and Bad Santa 2 – and opened up about the mastectomy in 2012 on Twitter.
These days, though she’s cancer-free, Bates says she is now dealing with her biggest challenge yet: lymphedema, a disease that’s commonly caused by the removal of lymph nodes during cancer treatment. It causes extreme swelling and pain due to an accumulation of lymph fluid. It has no cure, but can be treated by a special massage technique of the affected limb called manual lymph drainage, and using compression devices. “It’s a souvenir you definitely don’t want,” says Bates after the diagnosis, “I really felt that life was over for me. I probably wouldn’t work again, and I was angry for a long time.”
Then Bates decided to turn her frustration into good by raising awareness about lymphedema. She became the national spokesperson for the Lymphatic Education and Research Network in the US. “It’s quite serious,” she says, adding many people remain undiagnosed and can’t figure out why they are swollen and in pain. People can go for years without it getting diagnosed properly. There are probably millions of men out there who, because of prostate surgery, have it in their legs and groins and won’t talk about it. I’m one of the lucky ones in that I have it in my arm, and that’s it.”
She’s working on getting a bill passed in New York State to mandate that hospitals provide information about lymphedema to at-risk patients, and she’s learned to manage pain by wearing compression sleeves and losing 27kg.
Now she’s sharing her journey. On Sept. 7 she joined Reese Witherspoon, Matthew Mcconaughey and Jennifer Garner for the biennial fundraising special Stand Up to Cancer. And her career is booming, including roles in American Horror Story and the upcoming film On the Basis of Sex. “Acting is my life force,” she says, adding she considered a breast reconstruction but doesn’t want to take time out for surgery because, “I’m having too much fun.” Her advice to women: Get regular check-ups and stay healthy. “Quit taking damn selfies and worrying about what you look like,” she says. “Instead, keep everything working and in good order.”