Actress Lisa Ray, the green-eyed beauty who starred in the films "Bollywood/Hollywood" and "Water," has revealed she has incurable cancer.
The Toronto actress announced on her blog this week she has multiple myeloma, a cancer of the blood cells within bone marrow. Ray says she was diagnosed on June 23, and began chemotherapy treatment within days.
But, as her witty, chatty blog reveals, the 37-year-old remains optimistic. She says she expects she has a long life yet with the disease that is diagnosed in about 2,100 Canadians each year, almost all of them over the age of 60.
"I believe it can be cured," she writes on her blog. "That's the Dirty Realist in me... I'm getting better. My prognosis, given my 'junior' status and stage of disease, is very good. I'm aiming for full remission."
Ray says she had been feeling rundown and tired for so long before her diagnosis that when she was told she had cancer, "it was a relief to hear what was wrong," she writes.
"I didn't react, and I didn't cry," she writes about the day she got the news, "I'm an actress, believe me, I can be dramatic. Not just then, though."
Until this week, Ray stayed quiet about her condition, telling only family and a few close friends. But she decided to go public with her battle because she wants to help build awareness of a rare form of cancer few people know about.
She also knows that her treatments, which include heavy doses of dexamethasone and other steroids, are going to interfere with her promotion at the Toronto International Film Festival of her two new films.
"Cooking With Stella," a new comedy by director Dilip Mehta is set to get a red carpet Gala premiere at the festival, and Ray will also be promoting her role in Peter Stebbings' "Defendor," which stars Woody Harrelson and Kat Dennings.
Ray has begun a four-month-long cycle of treatments that will finish at the end of October. She then hopes to undergo a stem-cell transplant that she expects will push her into remission.
Ray grew up in the Toronto neighbourhood of Etobicoke with a Bengali father and a Polish mother, who recently died. She began her career as a model in India and was voted among the Top 10 Most Beautiful Women of the Millennium in a poll in The Times of India.
After she moved into films, Canadian director Deepa Mehta cast her in "Bollywood/Hollywood." She later garnered international acclaim for her work in the controversial "Water."
Ray says she has stayed as busy as wever since her diagnosis but plans to slow down and put her career on hold. After she promotes her films next week at TIFF, she plans to spend the rest of the year focusing on her health.
Later this month, she will be named as one of Four National Ambassadors for the 'Because I Am a Girl Child' campaign of Plan Canada. The campaign fights for the rights of girls around the world who face discrimination because of their gender and age.
