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Since returning home from London, my normally low-hum anxiety has ratcheted up to a heart-racing, sleep-depriving, sanity-stealing Beast. After two months of suppressing my breast cancer diagnosis, should I have seen that coming? Probably. Did I? Nope. 

My nervous system’s baseline is the stuff of go-getter dreams – it keeps me productive and engaged. It resets with exercise, meditation, downtime and the touch of loved ones. I was so ready to come home, confident I’d tackle this illness with intensity, grace & jokes (always jokes.) When I deplaned stateside though, a beast made a home in my chest, weaving its fingers through my ribs before closing into an unyielding fist. It wakes me in the middle of the night, clenching ever-so-tightly, whispering cancer stats and flooding me with “what ifs?” 

Two weeks away from my double mastectomy, I wish the surgery was happening tomorrow. That’s a crazy thing to say, but I believe The Beast is a mix of anticipatory anxiety and grief. I’d like to get this show on the road, so I can extricate this creature from my sternum.

It’s 4am and we’ve been awake for hours, The Beast and I. I’m reflecting on the myriad ways people have stepped in and stepped up this week. For me, the purest form of love is presence. You get one life – one little life – and I couldn’t be more grateful for the people showing up in mine right now.

As I lie in the dark with The Beast clawing away at my ribcage, my mind switches to the past and to the times I was surrounded by exactly the wrong people. There’s a rather pervasive culture of selfishness in my line of work; motives run murky and words are allowed to be meaningless. This took a long time for me to understand as a young actor. Artists are verbose by nature; they lean insecure and can be prone to love-bombing as a means of nursing various attachment wounds. There’s this casual nature with which compliments are sometimes strewn about; almost an assumption that everyone is needy and must be fed. As a kid from Phoenix whose parents meant what they said, I didn’t really understand this fluffy faux kindness, nor its cagier cousin duplicity. I assimilated and tried it on for a brief period, but tapped out rather quickly. For me, words have meaning and relationships have depth. I love my job, so I carefully test the waters in which I swim. It takes a bit of time to see if someone’s actions match their words. 

My bullshitometer is well-tuned now, but it was hard won. In the early days of my life in LA, an actor swept me off my ever-loving feet. This man was bursting with talent, universally adored, hilarious, brilliant, tall, dark and handsome and oh the songs Taylor would have written! He drowned me with poetry, praise and pageantry – and I lapped up every word. To be complimented by such a wordsmith was divine. I loved the version of me he reflected back and was too naive to question it. But as the fantasy of me gave way to reality, the shift began. Turned out there wasn’t room for the real me who had needs. I watched my image fade in this man’s eyes with fascinating speed. The praise, adoration, nicknames, declarations – they vanished nearly as quickly as they’d materialized. I lost him in tiny pieces first (which he denied), then all at once (which he didn’t explain.)

I’d thought myself emotionally intelligent enough to clock vacuous praise, so my pain was real and my equilibrium shaken. With time, it was replaced by an acceptance of who he was and what he’d been after. I too had to lay down the idolized version I’d been carrying. It was hard work, but there’s grace in loving someone while they’re leaving you.  It was then I learned to let them leave because, baby, they know something you don’t know. 

All I did know was my side of the street. I only had this one little life and I chose to spend it with my heart wide open. One little life –  

The Beast snaps my attention back to cancer, clever little fucker. Not a lot of good comes from lying awake at night revisiting the ghosts of heartbreak past, but it is a nice distraction from the disease in my chest. 

It’s then that it occurs to me that my cancer is in my chest where The Beast resides. Is he clutching my ribs and trying to break me – or is he actually holding me together? Is his death grip on my heart – or on the cancer? What if he’s containing it, willing it not to spread so that I may be spared chemo? 

Perhaps I haven’t given The Beast the credit he deserves. Perhaps, as with us all, love and acceptance are what he needs. After all, even The Actor told me years later that I was the only person who’d ever loved him as he was. Sure, I liked his talent and looks, but I loved his heart. I gave him the forgiveness he needed and held him while he cried. No, I didn’t give it a second chance romantically; instead, my gut told me to hold him the way his mom hadn’t. It was neither my first nor last embrace with a scared boy who wasn’t given a fair shot at knowing how to love. There’s a particular kind of grasp and you just know. He’d hurt me, yes, but I’d also learned an invaluable lesson about empathy and compassion.

Some people are in our lives to bring pain, because there are certain kinds of growth that don’t stem from happily-ever-afters. That’s what you are, aren’t you, Beast? You’re that kind of pain, holding me accountable at night so I don’t coast through this pretending it’s not that hard. You’re seizing up when my mind wanders too far into distraction and returning me to the task at hand. You’re pointing out what to hold onto and what to let go of. I get it now and I thank you for holding me together when it would be easier to fall apart. In the darkness, I feel my chest relax as the tears well up. I drift back to sleep, finally at peace. 

Three weeks before I’m scheduled to get on a plane to London to shoot a show I’ve been excited about for six months, I am diagnosed with breast cancer. 

Didn’t see that coming? Welcome to my world. I’m supposed to be prepping for the shoot and taking my kids to Disneyland, but instead I’m engulfed in a tornado of mammograms, MRIs, biopsies, second opinions, third opinions, and general what-the-fuckery.  I’ve also sprained my ankle (why not?) and as I leave the 7th of what will be 15 medical appointments this week, it’s clear that I’m no longer in the “best case scenario” of three years ago when I was diagnosed the first time. I crutch back to my car, a mix of shock, anger and bruises forming on my ribs. The crutches dig into a biopsy site in my right breast which has just been called “a goner” by a leading surgical oncologist. Insult to injury in the most tangible way. 

In an act of mercy, I’m cleared to go to London to shoot the show, but only because the recommendation is a double mastectomy upon return. It’s an early stage cancer that’s contained to a duct; is this not killing an ant with a sledgehammer? Apparently not, because it’s my second time and my 42nd birthday is in three days. There is too much risk now – too many years ahead for another recurrence. The girls have to go, but I’m allowed to do the show. 

By the 13th appointment, I’m on a knee scooter because my ankle is getting worse rather than better. This time we see a plastic surgeon who walks us through breast reconstruction options. As we try to find our car in the massive lot afterward, we realize we’re on the wrong level; we’ve gone up too high. I eye the elevator, think of every scary thing I just heard about implants and take off on the knee scooter, riding it downward like a sled, feeling wind rush through my hair after a week of being trapped in my body. My husband runs behind me yelling “Watch out for cars!” I toss back “Think of the trouble you’ll be spared if I don’t!” We both laugh the way you only can when the gallows are closing in. 

We spend the next two weeks with our family of friends. With my mobility challenged, they fill our home with laughter, surrounding us and our kids with love. It is a thing of beauty to have the people in your life show up to guide you through the shadowy bits. But it’s a thing of horror to see the fear in their eyes as they process your return to a gauntlet you all thought you’d left behind. With the trip impending, we say goodbyes – hard ones. The ones laced with “this will all be ok” when no one really knows if it’s true. 

It’s time to pack, but I still can’t walk. I crawl (literally. fucking. crawl.) around the house to pack us up for two months abroad. I don’t have an explanation as to why the ankle pain is still so bad, but am told I’m about to turn the corner. My ortho demands bed rest again, so I rage briefly then decide to get to work. I’ll start prepping my scripts and creating my character. Stuck in bed, I begin to build Sarah Campbell, and I love her immediately. She’s hope and optimism at a time when I really need it. 

Off we go to England. I’m wheel-chaired through the airport because I can’t crutch that far with the bruises on my ribs growing darker. I pretend it’s a fun ride for my 6 year old but I’m feeling ever more trapped in my body. As an anxious person, I need exercise to calm my nervous system. Without it, the overwhelm is rising. I feel mounting fear that this ankle sprain could impact the shoot if I don’t turn the corner and walk. The flight goes well. Three & Six Year Old both sleep and I think “ok, miracles do happen, maybe this really will be ok.” 

A week later, I still can’t walk without extreme pain. I go to the table read in a boot and crutches, terrified that I’m about to ruin this show. But as we read through the episodes, what happens in that room can only be described as magic. My love for this particular writer, John Morton, deserves its own blog. His scripts are unlike anything else. They’re not just story, they’re music. I’ve heard him compared to Sorkin, but I think Sondheim is more appropriate. The lines alternate between melody and dissonance in a brilliant, beautiful chorus. It’s a character-based orchestra of optimism and ambition mixed with failure and flaws. This is unique to John and as actors, everyone knows they’re lucky to be there with his material in hand. We read the full season in a room that can only be described as a sauna, which would typically be the death of comedy. But this cast, this glorious cast, makes every line sail through the sticky air. I don’t know how many hours we spend in that room sweating and laughing, but it’s far too many and far too few at the same time. It’s obvious we have something special on our hands.

I go to my cast medical. I could spend an hour trying to describe the way this poor physician reacts to what was supposed to be a routine exam to get me insured for the shoot. I walk in on crutches with the boot, enough of a disaster, and then I hit him with cancer. I’m already cleared by production, but he’s personally devastated for me. He’s kind. For a very long time only he, producers and my darling makeup artist Flora know. There is no way I’m about to go through this summer seeing pity in everyone else’s eyes. 

Turns out that will happen anyway, because my sprained ankle ends up involving nerve damage and I spend 6 more weeks on crutches. There’s so much to say here, but I’m going to gloss over it because it’s a nightmare. The part worth sharing is that incredible thing that happens in hardship when humans step up without being asked. The cast & crew care for me like family. They carry my crutches out of frame once I’m settled into the shot, rearrange scenes, book medical appointments, refill my water bottle, get my ice packs & meds, my tea, my snacks, help me to the bathroom (yes), push the wheelchair when my body is so universally broken that I can’t crutch anymore from the set to my dressing room.  And a few of them take especially good care of my heart.

It may be obvious at this point, dear reader, but I like to turn outward and soak in the people around me. It’s a coping mechanism that’s proven more effective than the alcohol or repression I tried in my youth. I can sit & stew OR I can try to bring some else joy. I have found my life’s purpose in the latter. When I mark time by making people laugh, making them feel loved & supported, I feel connected. I feel that I matter (loads to unpack there, surely.) 

Here I am, surrounded by the kindest folks you can ask for. It’s never lost on me that I’ve been gifted this particular shoot with this specific material and these exact people. I am flooded with gratitude every day. 

Up until the final weeks of filming, I compartmentalize the cancer completely. I’m focused on doing my job and being able to walk again. Once the nerve damage is properly diagnosed, I get a nerve block and finally turn that elusive corner. The first scene we do as I take unsupported steps is into Alexis’ office. Nicole conceals my crutches under her desk & I see her body tense up, ready to catch me if I fall. The set goes silent as I walk from her desk to Alexis’ open hand; it’s all of 6 feet, but it’s the Grand Canyon.  Everyone applauds as if we have a toddler on set taking her first steps. I feel like I’ve been given my life back. Finally, freedom. 

With two weeks of filming to go, I’m a new woman on that set. Free to go anywhere I please and free of feeling like a burden to everyone around me. We’re going to finish this thing with plenty of shots of me walking around! We’re going to finish this thing with me actually enjoying London and all it has to offer! We’re going to finish this thing and – oh my god, we’re going to finish this thing and I have cancer. 

The compartmentalization falters. The dam starts to disintegrate and leaks spring forth. Deep beneath my gratitude, fear has been lying in wait and its time has come. 

Running lines in the green room with the cast, the music halts with the drop of a line, followed by laughter when I realize it’s me who lost the rhythm and – holy shit, I’m going to lose part of my body. 

Standing in our set kitchen lining up a shot, chatting with our DP about his adorable son’s newfound affinity for foul language and – how do I tell my boys that Mommy’s sick? 

Talking to a costar about what he’s shooting next, followed by him asking what I have on the horizon and – how long will it be before I’m well enough to work again? 

Shooting a group scene where the primary goal is to get useable footage without anyone shaking from laughter and – what if this surgery doesn’t go well and this is the last shoot I ever do?

I can’t hold this in anymore. Over the course of a few days, I look my new friends in the eyes and tell them the secret I’ve been stuffing down for months. That my ankle is the least of my problems and gosh, I’m so sorry to drop this bomb on you and no, you don’t have to find the right words and yes, I should be ok. To a person, they respond beautifully. Of course they do. 

For the final two weeks, I have allies in my fight for composure. I get to finish the show feeling the kind of support I get at home – the kind that leaves me more whole than I have any right to feel given the circumstances. Jimena holds my hand and my heart, Alexis brings me the matcha lattes he clocked me ordering the first week, Stephen (who had done the aforementioned wheelchair pushing) makes me feel protected, Paulo makes me feel seen & safe, Nick gifts me that ever-holy medicine of laughter and Hugh glues to my side in the final, scariest days as we wrap the shoot together, our two characters facing hardships of their own. I am essentially scaffolded by a group of strangers who’ve become family. A flag is planted in London and a piece of my heart will live here forever.

Suddenly, it’s time to go home. The shoot is over and the incredible distraction it provided has given way to the reality that I am, in fact, sick. As I trade sound stages for operating rooms, the complete erasure of ego begins. 

I’ve lived in a world of utter surreality for months and my brain, heart & body are trying to fuse back together. Writing this feels like a good step toward that end – and I thank you very much for reading my story. I know some of you will ask what you can do; nothing but send your love to me & my family as we enter the next chapter. Perhaps say a prayer that the new breasts might be even better than the ones I’ve loved these 42 years? 

Keep an eye out for the release date of Twenty Twenty Six, of which I simply could not be more proud. It is filled with people without whom I wouldn’t be who I am in this exact moment in time. 

But most importantly, please, please, please, do your monthly self breast exams.  Had I not been doing mine three years ago, literally everything in this story would be different. 

I’ll leave you with a parting thought from my character Sarah that’s been bouncing around my head for days now:

“From now on, things are going to be different, right? Because they have to be.”