Stand Up To Cancer

New York City, February 14, 2003. I should have been out with friends, or better yet, with that hot guy from yoga class. Instead I was at the doctor's office, lying on an exam table while a concerned nurse passed an ultrasound scanner across my belly. I'd come in with shortness of breath and abdominal cramps. I just thought I'd overdone it partying at a film festival. Showing off for that guy in yoga class probably didn't help.

When I asked the nurse what she saw, she said, "You'll have to speak with the doctor." The mood in the room immediately changed. Something was wrong. "The surface of your liver is covered with tumors," she told me. "It's so bad it looks like Swiss cheese." I panicked! After a biopsy, more blood tests, and body scans, the doctor found ten more tumors in my lungs. My family came to be with me as I got the diagnosis: epithelioid hemangioendothelioma, a rare, inoperable and incurable sarcoma.

I was only 31, an up-and-coming photographer and actress. Just a few weeks ago I'd starred in two Bud Light commercials that had aired during the Super Bowl. How could I have cancer? It seemed so unreal. I didn't look sick, I didn't feel sick. Luckily the cancer was slow-moving. Since I was asymptomatic, the specialist recommended a "watch and wait" approach for the next two months.

No way could I casually sit on a time bomb! "Is there anything I can do?" I pleaded.

"Just try and live a normal life," the doctor said.

What? How could I live with cancer without thinking of dying every day? No thanks. Instead I decided to take a "watch and LIVE approach" and make a plan of action.

The only thing I knew I could control was what I put in my body, and by that I mean what I ate, drank and thought. So I immediately began to focus on building my immune system through diet and lifestyle. To prepare myself for my journey, I made a little sacred space in my apartment. I covered a table with pictures of my favorite people, candles, my grandma's rosary, a rock from my mom's garden. Twenty minutes a day I sat there, giving myself pep talks and saying prayers. For the first time in my life I could hear my inner voice. "Totally renovate your life," it said. Yes! Soon after my revelation, I quit my job to become a full-time healing junkie. My old idea of nutrition was what to eat to whittle away my figure for acting jobs: PowerBars, coffee, fat-free this, takeout that. Now I had to learn how to eat to nourish my body. I read books, took seminars and certification holistic health programs. Finally, I gravitated toward a raw and living foods approach to cleanse and repair my body. The more I flooded my cells with fresh green vegetable juices, flushed my body of toxins and eliminated all processed foods, refined sugar and animal products, the better I felt.

To strengthen my attitude and spirit, I looked for books or movies about young women with cancer. But everything was geared toward either kids or people much older than me, and most of it was really sappy or depressing.

Cancer needed a makeover, and I decided I was just the gal to do it. I began writing and filming my journey. I documented everything and everyone. The video camera was my buddy. I talked, it listened. It made cancer a project. It made me an artist, not a victim; a director, not a patient.

I longed to hear stories from other women, but I wasn't into support groups. (In truth, I was too chicken.) So I called everyone in my address book and asked, "Do you know any young women with cancer?"

I got connected to women who understood me in a way no one else could. Cancer Babes, I call them. Some of them even let me interview them for my documentary, Crazy Sexy Cancer, and for my first book Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips.

By August I needed a break, so my best friend and I took a road trip to New Mexico. "Inward Bound," we called it. Our spiritual adventure. We went on daily pilgrimages to churches and monasteries and took in the soulful sights of the desert.

One day, walking through the Santa Fe Indian Market, I came upon two little girls chasing each other, their laughter bursting through the air.

"My heart is jumping," one said to the other. "Is yours?"

"Yes," I said softly. "Yes."

I watched them twirl and spin, wondering what would happen if I let go like that. Maybe my heart would jump so high it would shatter everything that was holding me back. I knew in that moment that everything I needed for the light to shine through was inside me; I just needed to break open.

That sense of possibility must have been what drew me to spend the rest of that summer at Upaya, a beautiful Zen monastery. My mind was cluttered with fear, unable to harness the full spectrum of my healing potential. Getting still was the only solution. Meditation had never been my thing. Those last five minutes of yoga class, where you breathe deeply and meditate, were torture.

My first evening at the monastery was embarrassingly painful. All my emotional junk came pouring out in a flood of tears. But it felt good to release the weight I'd been carrying. As the weeks went by I blossomed. Beneath my junk lay a wealth of healing potential. A new zest for life and mountains of creativity were pouring out of me and I was so grateful. Plus the monks were kinda sexy. Just kidding!

I think all that emotional release opened me up to meeting my soul mate. Brian was an acquaintance, a film editor I asked to help me shoot and edit my documentary. Pretty soon we were together constantly, 16-hour editing sessions full of creativity, laughter and a blossoming friendship.

I knew I was really falling for the guy when I tried to protect him by breaking up with him. "This is my burden," I said. "You have your whole life ahead of you. Find a healthy chick and be normal."

He refused. "I love you, you are healthy, and I'm staying," he said. "Let's take it one day at a time and work with what we've got, okay?"

Brian and I got married and moved to a little house in Woodstock, NY. The cancer is stable, not growing and I am proud to call myself a survivor - with cancer.

Cancer is no gift, but for me, it was a catalyst. It gave me the freedom to dump my baggage, to learn to eat properly and take care of myself, to take risks, to really live a life full of sass and fireworks.

-- Kris Carr

Kris Carr has an online forum at crazysexylife.com. Check out the Crazy Sexy Cancer site at crazysexycancer.com.