Jessica St. Clair had breast cancer and chemo, kept her hair by using ice packs
Jessica St. Clair, 40, is an actress who has been on Veep, Bridesmaids and currently stars on and co-writes the show Playing House on the USA network. She recently wrote a first person essay for Stand Up To Cancer in which she detailed her battle with breast cancer starting in September, 2015. It’s been a year since she completed breast reconstruction and chemo, she did a whopping 16 rounds, and she explained how she went through that really tough process and stayed strong for her daughter, who was just two at the time. She also described the way that she was able to keep most of her hair, by using this eight hour hair freezing process after every round of chemo which dramatically reduces hair loss but sounds uncomfortable, to say the least. You can read her essay on Stand Up To Cancer, and here are some excerpts:
She had “one step reconstruction”
In one surgery, the breast tissue is removed and the new implants are put in. For women who don’t have medical restrictions, it allows them to go to sleep with breasts and wake up with their new breasts intact. It does away with the need for the multiple surgeries, painful tissue expanders or visible scarring that’s involved in a traditional mastectomy. Ten days after my one-step reconstruction, I was on the beach with my daughter. No joke. Oh, and I got to keep my nipples which made me really happy because apparently my nipples are really important to me. I am so proud of my new boobs that I take them out whenever I can. I cannot tell you how many women I have pulled into closets in order to show them the results, just so that they can get the word out about this approach to surgery.
She had a “cold cap procedure” to try to preserve her hair
Once I recovered from surgery, I underwent sixteen rounds of chemo (four sessions of AC, twelve of Taxol). To say I was afraid of chemo is the understatement of the year. My biggest fear was that I would be too sick to care for my then two-year-old daughter, who was too young to understand what I was going through. My oncologist [and doctors] came to the rescue. They shared what they call their “cancer hacks”—things their patients had experimented with to minimize the side effects of chemo. So, I enlisted the help of my husband and my best friend / comedy wife, Lennon Parham, to try every single one… And here’s the amazing thing—every single hack we tried actually worked. Every chemo session, they would pack me in ice, as Lennon puts it, like a “choice piece of holiday meat.” They distracted me from the intense pain of the cold by reading aloud from old Oprah magazines and feeding me Teddy Grahams and Cheez-Its, while I froze my scalp for eight hours using “cold caps” to keep my hair from falling out (I only lost 30 percent). They wrapped ice packs on my eyes like a mummy in order to freeze my eyebrows and eyelashes (I didn’t lose a single one). I wore frozen booties and mittens to avoid getting neuropathy in my hands and feet. I took supplements my doctor recommended for the neuropathy and to strengthen my hair. Twice a week I went to an acupuncturist. I changed my diet to include more fiber, fish and vegetables (and about a pound of dark chocolate a day) with the help of a cancer nutritionist. I tried to walk at least twenty minutes a day. Did I still feel like I’d been run over by a Mack Truck? Absolutely. It’s chemo, after all—they don’t call it the Red Devil for nothing. And I lost enough hair that when the new hair started to grow in, I resembled Dog the Bounty Hunter. 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.
I really hope I never need to know about that cold cap procedure or about one step reconstruction, but if I do it may be invaluable, for me or someone I know who has to go through what sounds like total hell. I can’t imagine doing chemo and then having to sit there for eight hours with ice packs on my head, eyes, hands and feet. I would want to smoke a lot of pot after dealing with that. I’m not a pot smoker I swear but if I did chemo I would be.
Spoilers for Playing House
Jessica and her co-writer and co-star on Playing House, Lennon Parham, wrote a plotline for the show in which her character gets breast cancer and goes through a similar treatment and personal transformation as Jessica. It will be introduced in this upcoming third season, which premieres at the end of June. She writes that her character, Emma, emerges “somehow happier and more fulfilled than she was before she was diagnosed” and that they hope by including her story “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.” I know I learned quite a bit about breast cancer treatment options and she’s surely done a great service by going public with her story.
Photos credit: WENN.com
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