HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Maura Tierney is opening up about her breast cancer battle, revealing she was afraid to go to the hospital despite playing a physician on ER for 10 years.
"I was so, so scared of going to the doctor," the 45-year-old tells Parade magazine. "I felt something, and my boyfriend at the time made me go. He said, 'You've got to take care of this,' because I was afraid. That's one thing I will say: Don't be afraid to go to the damn doctor. Just go!"
Tierney received the breast cancer diagnosis in June 2009. As a result, she had to put her career on hold and leave NBC's promising drama Parenthood.
"I was so lucky," she says. "I had insurance, I found a great team of doctors at UCLA, and I could afford not to work while I was getting treated. From the beginning my doctor told me, 'You're going to be okay,' and I chose to believe him. So there was always that in my head."
But it wasn't always easy, particularly when she received some disappointing news after undergoing surgery.
"It turned out to be a more aggressive kind of cancer than they thought," she reveals, adding that her doctor informed her that pathologists might have missed the difference altogether a decade earlier. "He said they would have patted me on the head and told me, 'You're cured,' and I would have died of breast cancer."
Tierney still has two months to go before the end of her treatment, but her career is in full swing again. She'll next play a prosecutor on ABC's legal drama The Whole Truth.
"I haven't figured out where I want to focus my energies to help others, and I don't know what kind of wisdom to drop on anybody yet—except for, you know, they can help people now," she reflects. "I feel an immense sense of gratitude, but sometimes I think there should be room for more gratitude [in me], because I can still be bitchy in the morning..."
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