Ellen Pompeo (left) / Photo: LiGado em Série, Flickr
“Grey’s Anatomy” star Ellen Pompeo has teamed up with the American Cancer Society, and she’s spreading a very important message: Choose You. Here’s what she wants you to do:
Eat right.
Get active.
Quit smoking.
Get regular health checks.
Protect your skin.
Some pretty good advice, eh?
May 12 is National Choose You Day, but why wait until then — get started now! Here are some resources to help you get the ball rolling.
I haven’t been watching much of “Grey’s Anatomy” lately, but I do know that Katerine Hiegl’s character Izzie Stevens has cancer, so when I caught tonight’s episode, I was somewhat prepared for the storyline. What I wasn’t prepared for was my reaction to the end of the show, when Izzie pulls fistfuls of hair from her head.
She cried.
I cried.
I cried big, sobbing tears, because even though I am almost five years removed from that same helpless, hopeless feeling, it was still there, right in the pit of my stomach, waiting to be called up.
My cancer memories are vivid. Every one of them. But nothing is as vivid as the feeling that suffocated me the day my hair started falling out, when it washed from my head in the shower and gathered in the drain, and wound around my brush, and then covered my pillowcase when I woke up the next morning.
“That was the worst,” I told my husband as “Grey’s Anatomy” ended tonight and Izzie sat in a hospital bed with a completely bald head. “You survived it,” John said. Yes, I did. But I’ll never forget it.
