Great Health, January 2009
Great Health Magazine
Written by Chris Mann
Photography by ianspanier.com
Fran Drescher turned her anger into action after having her uterine cancer misdiagnosed, and now she’s fighting to educate and empower women worldwide.
For six seasons in the 1990s, her wacky charm and distinctive guffaw brought love and levity to a single dad and his young brood on the hit CBS sitcom “The Nanny.” But as her fame-making show wound down by 1999, so too did Fran Drescher’s trademark nasal laughter. Her marriage of nearly 20 years had fallen apart, and her gynecologic health began to falter. Misdiagnosed with perimenopause for two long years, Drescher finally discovered the truth behind her irregular cramping and midmonth staining: She had Stage 1 uterine cancer. An emergency hysterectomy would claim her entire reproductive system three months shy of her 43rd birthday. “I was trying to find myself,” she recalls, “as a woman who was single for the first time and trying to navigate through this odyssey of a health-care system that is not designed to help a woman find out what’s wrong with her.”
Eventually, Drescher’s strength and sense of humor returned as she poured her heart out in a book whose title, Cancer Schmancer, became first her mantra, then a nonprofit organization and sociopolitical movement. The New York-born actress-turned-author emerged a cancer survivor-turned-health activist, galvanizing women and lobbying Washington to mandate early detection of all women’s cancers. In September 2008, the State Department named Drescher a U.S. public diplomacy envoy for women’s health issues, cancer awareness, and detection and patient advocacy. In this role, she recently toured Eastern Europe meeting with women’s groups and health organizations. Proudly claiming a clean bill of health for 8 1/2 years, Drescher, now 51, shares cancer facts, health-care tips, survivor stories and news on women’s health legislation at CancerSchmancer.org, which she launched in 2007.
GH: How was your uterine cancer misdiagnosed?
FD: I was told repeatedly I was perimenopausal when all the while I had uterine cancer. At the cancer’s earliest stages, it looks almost identical to early menopause. Most women’s cancers in their earliest and most curable stages mimic far more benign illnesses. For instance, women with ovarian cancer very often are misdiagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome. Women need to know this.
GH: When did you realize that you’d be turning such a negative health experience into a life-affirming book, and now a movement and foundation?
FD: It took me two years and eight doctors to get a proper diagnosis for my uterine cancer. In my frustration, I thought, I’m gonna write a book about this, because I don’t want what’s happened to me to happen to other people. And then when I went on my book tour, I realized that what happened to me had happened to hundreds of thousands—maybe millions—of people by means of misdiagnosis and mistreatment. As a result of that, it’s a late-stage cancer diagnosis for many. The cancer keeps growing and spreading as you’re being mistreated and misdiagnosed. Many Americans lose their lives because they found out late they had cancer, and their chances of survival were greatly diminished.
GH: What are your chief goals?
FD: I think the missing link in all of this—cancer, charity, research, blah blah blah—is to ensure that every American who gets cancer be diagnosed when it’s most curable. That seems like the most imminent way to solve the problem while in search of some cure. I think that unless we start to attack cancer prevention—clearing out the toxins we’re exposed to, the lifestyles that we lead—we’re really not going to be able to cure cancer or stop cancer. We want to educate people about the early-warning whispers of the cancers that might affect them, and the tests available. We want to transform patients into medical consumers, because we put more time and energy into the buying, selling and appearance of our automobiles than our own bodies. We need to become better partners with our physicians, be in control of our bodies, and put our health first and foremost above all else, including our family.
GH: Many women believe putting their own health first is selfish.
FD: The revolutionary thinking of the Cancer Schmancer movement is that when you put your family first, you’re really putting them last, because you’re useless to them if you’re six feet under. Women tend to be the caregivers to the children, the spouses and the elders in almost every American home. So at all costs you must keep yourself alive. Just like the woman on the plane who’s told, “Put your breathing mask on first, before your child,” we have to do that with aspects of our health and well-being. It’s a change in thinking, but it’s what we’re about.
Ours is actually a three-pronged approach: education, prevention and policy. We’re lobbyists, and we go to Washington and say, “This needs to be changed and this needs to be done.”
GH: You’ve made great strides with the Gynecologic Cancer Education and Awareness Act [aka Johanna’s Law].
FD: Yes, I’m working with them on how to get the most bang for our bucks, and reach the most women in America and alert them to the early-warning symptoms of gynecologic cancers and the tests that are available.
GH: Is there a test that helps women detect early-stage changes?
FD: We at Cancer Schmancer introduced an initiative in California to try to mandate that all women who go to their gynecologists at least once a year be given a transvaginal ultrasound [TVU]. Presently, the only women who are offered it as part of their basic health care are pregnant women. We’re trying to include nonpregnant women, who also have a right to know what’s going on with their uterus and ovaries.
GH: What are some early-whisper warning signs of gynecologic cancer?
FD: If you have a family history, you have to be much more defensive. Also, if you have midmonth staining and clean periods, that’s an automatic red flag to get an endometrial biopsy. Run, don’t walk. If you have staining and you’re postmenopausal, same advice. If you have acne around your mouth and chin area, more often than not there’s a hormone imbalance, which itself is indicative of a problem. If a TVU shows thickening of the endometrial lining, that is a precursor to uterine cancer. You must take another step—an endometrial biopsy or a D&C. An endometrial biopsy can be done in the doctor’s office.
GH: Did your sense of humor help you during your cancer battle?
FD: I don’t want to soft-pedal the fact that I did go through an angry stage. And I was very bitter for a while, because the cure for my cancer was a radical hysterectomy. That’s difficult for anyone, and for a woman like me who’s never had children, it’s a particularly bitter pill to swallow. I felt victimized across the board—including by the medical community. I felt compromised by my own body, and then punished with the cure. So writing the book was very cathartic. I wrote four drafts before I found my funny bone again. Turning pain into purpose is very healing. People say to me, “Your book saved my life” and “Your Web site helped me.” When you empower women with knowledge, we’re unstoppable.
