Kathy Bates On Cancer Battle And Double Mastectomy: ‘I Don’t Have Breasts, So Why Do I Have To Pretend I Do?’

Kathy Bates is getting real about her battle with breast cancer and subsequently dealing with a little-known condition called lymphedema.

The 69-year-old actress recently opened up to WebMD about getting diagnosed with stage II breast cancer in 2012, after having already survived ovarian cancer in 2003. Bates underwent a double mastectomy, and also suffers from lymphedema — a collection of fluid that causes swelling in the arms and legs — that can occur when lymph nodes are removed or damaged after cancer surgery. Bates says she began noticing the swelling shortly after the mastectomy, and that her mother suffered from the condition as well.

“My mother had had a radical mastectomy — they took everything — and her arm swelled terribly,” Bates shares. “She was always a very smart dresser and wore very nice clothes, and after the surgery, she couldn’t fit into them anymore. It was a real slide into her feeling ‘less than.’ And so I remember getting hysterical when, even in the hospital, I noticed strange pains in my hands and then discovered that my arms were swelling.”

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