Jessica St. Clair went to great lengths to keep her hair during chemotherapy treatment in order to have "the least amount of impact" on her daughter.
The ‘Bridesmaids’ actress was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015 when she felt an unusual lump in her breast, and has now revealed she bought a cold cap – which is a chilled, tight, helmet-type hat that constricts blood vessels and can help prevent chemo from reaching hair follicles – in order to try and keep her diagnoses a secret from her three-year-old daughter Isobel.
Jessica – who has Isobel with her husband and playwright Dan O’Brien – said: "I touched my own boob – I don’t know why. I felt a lump and I instantly knew something was terribly wrong.
"I was sobbing like a baby bird. But I remember thinking, ‘I will do anything and everything I need to do to stay alive for my daughter and make sure this has the least amount of impact on her life.’ She would get nervous if I went to Walgreens, so what would she think if I told her I had cancer?"
The 40-year-old ‘Playing House’ star – who is now cancer free – admits she used to tell her daughter she was going to work when she had chemotherapy sessions.
She added: "I’d tell her I was going to work and I’d go to chemo and with the cold cap. After the first 10 minutes you really don’t feel it. It’s just more of a pain to have a frozen rugby helmet on your head."
Jessica managed to keep most of her hair thanks to the cap, and says not only did the process help with hiding her diagnoses from the world, it also meant she didn’t have to have a "hard conversation" with her young daughter.
She told People magazine: "The amazing thing was on the outside you didn’t know anything was happening to me. I actually walked a red carpet for a show three quarters of the way through treatment. But this wasn’t just vanity. When you’re a mother, these are really important things because it can save you from having a hard conversation that they aren’t going to understand anyway."
Jessica St Clair hit cancer diagnosis from daughter
