When I hit my 40s, I was happy, healthy and very, very busy. I was a caretaker for someone I loved. I was writing books. I took up golf, learned about scuba diving and participated in my first triathlon, doing lots of TV work, creating my clothing lines… I was really living life, taking care of myself, eating well and getting regular massages was a part of my regimen.

But I started feeling tired after spin classes, my breathing was becoming an issue and I had to stack 5 pillows under my head when I slept, and a cough made voice overs problematic…last but not least, I had developed an uncontrollable itch. At first I blamed my gluten filled diet, and three days before I was to appear on the Montel Williams Show, I recall standing at Whole Foods grocery store and deciding then and there that I needed to be gluten free. I had been feeling so terrible, I really had to dig deep to rethink how I was taking care of myself.

So I started buying rice cakes. I bought all these wonderful flours: tapioca and buckwheat and others. I made the cookies I craved with the new ingredients, and (although they were a little drier), the new cookies… and my new diet… were just fine. I started feeling better, less itchy, less puffy.

But my energy still wasn’t right, and I had a pressure in my chest that made it hard to sleep. My chiropractor would touch my neck in a certain place, and I’d cough every time. Having a past history as a massage therapist, I knew my body was trying to tell me something.

But I was having trouble getting doctors to listen. Some of them mentioned hormones. One doctor started a conversation with, “I know you’re in the media, and you’re used to having a lot of attention, but…” I actually walked out of his office.

When I sat down with the fifth doctor, I said, “Pardon me… I don’t want to seem overly pushy or stubborn or anything, but I want to have a full set of blood tests, and I’m not going to leave your office until you give me a complete chest x-ray.”

I’m not sure if she agreed with me, but she said she could tell I was very serious. “I feel there’s something in my chest,” I said. And I had to find out what it was despite her additional prescription of Nexium for acid reflux (just in case).

The diagnosis was stage 2 Non Hodgkin's Lymphoma —a form of lymphatic cancer that is thankfully often curable with chemotherapy (and radiation). What I had felt in my chest was a quite a few tumors and one about the size of a banana. When the doctor called, she said, “Thank God you were persistent.”

What is the lesson I learned here?

It took a few months for me to ask this question, and the answer didn’t come immediately. A little time and distance has given me the ability to think about what this diagnosis told me.

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