Shannen Doherty on the 'fear' of having kids after cancer: I don't 'want my 10-year-old burying a mother'
It’s been nearly two years since Shannen Doherty announced she was in remission following her breast cancer diagnosis, but the actress’s body is still reeling from the physical toll of chemo, radiation and surgery. The Beverly Hills, 90210 star talked to Health about how cancer changed her body and how she’s learning to love it again.
“The hormones I went on threw my body into menopause instantly,” she revealed. “My metabolism came to a screeching halt, and I put on a ton of weight. Chemo also put on weight for me. Plus, the chemo and radiation drain collagen right out of your skin, so you age really quickly. For me, the hardest part is the scars. Every time I get out of the shower, I look, and it’s like, ‘Oh my God, I’m Frankenstein.’”
Now that Doherty is in menopause, she is unable to have children.
“It’s not possible [for me to get pregnant] because I can’t get out of menopause,” she said. “That would require estrogen, and I’m choosing not to take hormone pills — I can’t risk those levels coming up.” (Estrogen levels may determine breast cancer recurrence.)
The 47-year-old actress, who has been married to Kurt Iswarienko for seven years, always wanted kids, but she told Health that cancer made her reevaluate being a mother.
“We’re having conversations about an egg donor, maybe adoption. But there’s fear there,” she said. “Am I going to last five years? Ten years? I certainly wouldn’t want my 10-year-old burying a mother. I’ve always wanted a kid. But maybe I’m supposed to mother in a different way.”
Meanwhile, Doherty’s family of two is solid: “Kurt and I got through one of the worst things a couple can go through, and we came out stronger.”
There was a moment after her March 2015 diagnosis that Doherty thought she was going to die.
“A pivotal moment for me was when I was deathly ill from the chemo,” she said. “They were worried about my organs shutting down because I couldn’t keep anything in. One time, I couldn’t lift my head, I couldn’t suck on an ice cube, I was done. And Kurt was crying, saying, ‘Please don’t leave me.’ I looked at him and thought, ‘I can’t do this to him.’ So I dug deep, gathered everything up and charged forward again.”
Doherty recalled one of the lowest moments throughout her journey was when her hair started to fall out.
“I remember I got in the shower to wash my hair, and it just started coming out in clumps. I started screaming for my mom. I think that was harder than the surgeries,” she said. “It was like, ‘Oh my God, this is real.’ Right away, I made the decision to shave my head. My friend came over, and she shaved it. We laughed, and we cried. She shaved it in stages, so it was like a pageboy, then punk rock, shaved on the sides. It was a fun experience, considering that I was devastated.”
The actress says she is now embracing her “strong” body after all it went through.
“I love that my body is strong and that it has the ability to fight something like cancer,” she said. “I’m trying to show it more appreciation by going to a nutritionist, Dr. Philip Goglia, and doing strength training and boxing at Box ’N Burn almost every day. Importantly, my perception of sexy has changed. For me now, sexy is strength. Sexy is vulnerability. Sexy is compassion. Sexy is grace. Why should I care so much about the physical shell?”
She added, “I felt more feminine and vulnerable than I’ve felt in my entire life. I was always used to being the strong one, and during that time period, every wall I’d built up in my life came down. I also had a lot more time to look at myself and say, ‘I’m a pretty OK person’ and cut myself some slack.
“I’ve had a lot of those epiphanies,” she continued. “It’s OK to stumble.”
Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:
