When Karen Walsh, Broadway actress and mother of two, found out she had inoperable, Stage IV cancer, she wasn’t sure how her family, friends and mostly importantly, herself, would cope with the news.
A friend and survivor of breast cancer encouraged her to ‘go public’ with her colon cancer diagnosis, explaining that it’s the support of friends and family that will get her through. And that’s exactly what Walsh, 40, did, using her Instagram account to announce each chemo round with a funny selfie and tongue-in-cheek caption.
But she took things up a notch 18 weeks into her chemotherapy treatment when she recreated a scene from Star Wars – complete with wigs costumes and yes, lightsabers – with some of her chemotherapy ‘squad’.
Since then, her friends and family have helped her recreate scenes from Charlie’s Angels, Forrest Gump, The Breakfast Club and Thelma and Louise.
“I really view this as a coping mechanism for myself,” Walsh told The Huffington Post. “I want it to be empowering, I want there to be forward motion, I want there to be joy or strength. I also want this to be something my daughter and son can see.”
“When people are like, ‘Oh, you’re so brave, you’re so inspiring,’ sometimes I don’t understand that because I just don’t see how else I would handle this,” Walsh went on to add. “I have to get through this for my kids … I just don’t have any choice if I want to be around to see my kids graduate from college, or get married or whatever they end up doing. I want to be around for that, so I need to try everything that I can.”
You can see some of her inspiring pictures below.
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