Kathy Bates

Cancer Type: Ovarian / Breast

Bio – A lymphedema ambassador after overcoming both ovarian and breast cancer. Read her story here…

Short Story – Kathy Bates is best known for her award-winning role as villain Annie Wilkes in the 1990 film Misery, and her role in the television series Two and a Half Men. When she awarded a role alongside the late Brittany Murphy in ‘Little Black Book’ in 1993, she had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer, yet she kept it quiet from the public eye.

In 2009 she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Despite testing negative for the BRCA, breast cancer gene, Bates chose to have a double mastectomy. She credits Melissa Etheridge for her speaking about both her cancers at the time she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

She chose to have a double mastectomy due to breast cancer running in her family. She struggled with removing her breasts, more so than treating her ovarian cancer. Emotionally it felt different; something many women may feel because physically they can see something has changed.

With her ovarian, she would go to chemo treatments alone, and back to work. Hiding her illness from the public eye. Breast surgery side effects led Bates to very painful lymphedema, something many surgeons and doctors ignore about cancer. “The challenge is getting the word out,” she says. “Surgeons usually focus on the cancer, period. Unfortunately, people do not get diagnosed.”

Now she has become an outspoken ambassador for the Lymphatic Education & Research Network (LE&RN) in the fight against lymphedema.

Thank you for your voice and your courage. We commend your boldness in confronting the real issues of lymphedema Kathy.

Facebook Page – https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kathy-Bates/105678986131542

Image Credits – Gage Skidmore [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons