Fran Drescher, Cancer Survivor, Has Advice for Living Through a Crisis
Fran Drescher, like all of us, has had a tough month.
In February, her beloved dog Samson died and Drescher was “quite broken by the experience.” Afterward, an acquaintance, something of a psychic, reached out to her via text message and encouraged her to adopt again “quickly.”
So last week, Drescher drove to a Los Angeles-area animal shelter, AGWC Rockin' Rescue in Woodland Hills, and found a new companion: Angel Grace, a "beautiful white husky with two different color eyes."
“It was more like a greeting of a long-lost friend than a first time meeting,” Drescher told The Advocate Monday via phone in a conversation that was planned to be based on her new NBC series, Indebted, but — like everything else in workplaces around the country and world — gravitated back toward the global COVID-19 epidemic. She, like this editor, was in isolation. Angel Grace was helping her get through it.
“I always say I'm a cancer survivor and a health advocate and activist and the founder of the Cancer Schmancer Movement. And one of the things that I tell people going through any kind of despair or trouble for health crisis is to make sure that they have something alive and warm in the bed with them. Because during the night, you don't have the distractions of the day,” Drescher said.
At night, “you're alone with your thoughts, your fears, your imagination. And that's when you need to roll over and grab onto something that's very in the moment. And if you don't have a mate or a pet, you must get one,” she added. “Because you cannot go through a crisis all alone.”
As Drescher mentioned, the 62-year-old actress is a survivor of uterine cancer. In 2007, seven years after receiving a hysterectomy for treatment, she founded the Cancer Schmancer Movement, in part to raise awareness of cancer symptoms and prevention.
