You wouldn’t believe it, the singer says. There she was readying for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her recent boyfriend, and at long last the parent to a young child after struggling to conceive for a decade, riding high. Suddenly in March she was diagnosed with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The musician, actual name Jessica Cornish, is renowned for being brutally honest. The album, the provocatively titled album, was supposed to be an transparent story, dealing with every moment of pain she’d endured since she last recorded music (endometrial issues, losing a baby, broken romances, emotional abuse, mental health struggles) with typical candour. The lead track, the song No Secrets, was launched in the spring. But by then there existed a huge secret. Her diagnosis. Then next release, Living My Best Life, came out in May and she was talking to press about how she was thriving, while all the while living with breast cancer. A month later she shared the news, and in the start of summer she underwent breast removal surgery.
She gives me her best “Are you kidding?” look. “I put out with a song called the track No Secrets. I’m giving every media appearance, and they’re, like, ‘Any updates?’ and I answer, ‘Well, not much…’” the singer has just had to postpone shows because she’s still waiting for follow-up surgery.
We’re at a studio in the capital. She is dressed in a light brown synthetic jacket, denim trousers with ornate white designs, off-white boots and oversized specs. Think biker chic meets 1970s Nana Mouskouri. “It seems like I’m in the 1970s and I should have a boyfriend with a big tache.” Like the film, I say, recalling the picture. “That’s what people called me at school!” She smiles. She is fast-thinking, bold and blunt. She says she has always fancied doing comedy and is hoping to make her initial standup show soon. “I love making people laugh. During performances I frequently joke about the audience.”
Medical Challenges and Discovery
Cornish was getting ready for an performance at the awards show when she discovered a mass. “I quickly sought to get it examined, had an scan, and they were, like, ‘It appears fine; you’ve got really good dense breast tissue.’ And I responded, ‘But I can feel it. I have arm pain and numbness in my fingers whenever I rise.’ And they said, ‘How about a biopsy?’ The date was March 28, the day after my birthday.” It was a weekend eve. The doctor told her if it was serious she’d call on the start of the week. By then the singer had convinced herself it was okay. The way she tells it, it was inopportune to get cancer when she had so much on.
“It was a fortnight prior from debuting the project after years away and four years without a single. And she contacted me and said, ‘Is six okay?’ And I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s a Zoom, it won’t be anything.’ So I join the call expecting it’s all going to be good, and she goes, ‘Are you sitting down?.’ You know that sad tone they use? And she says, ‘I’m so, so sorry but your test results have shown high-grade cancer cells.’” What was your reaction? “I answered, ‘That’s unfortunate. What awful timing.’ Immediately I felt was, ‘I have to survive for my boy.’”
I’ve been labeled difficult for knowing myself
She considered the operation frightening and surreal. “I dislike anesthesia. They lead you. During crises you are wheeled, but this time I just marched with a hospital gown and my rear exposed. You feel like you’re in an episode of Black Mirror.” But, she adds, she’s been blessed. No chemotherapy or radiation, just the surgery. “It’s terrible, but yet I’m grateful it was caught soon. I had the mastectomy four months ago and my one side now looks like a fruit under fabric.” She smiles again. “I got to keep the nipple, though.”
The follow-up procedure is for health and appearance. Her breasts, she remarks, are now “asymmetrical. The size doesn’t match. That’s impolite! I felt, don’t add insult to injury, I’m already having a difficult experience. Such disrespect! Ironically I said I’d avoid breast surgery because I’ve got perfectionism, and I know they’d never be perfect. My plans were disrupted.”
Previous Struggles
Cornish is familiar with health problems. She believes her outlook on her diagnosis has been so upbeat because she’s familiar with physical challenges. Many times they occur alongside professional successes, acting as a reminder, or blow, to highlight not to assume everything is fine. “Frankly, I feel the universe whispers, ‘Things going well? Take a seat.’ Ever since I was a child, it has always gone alongside high points for me; a major or strange event has happened to my health.”
She takes me back to her childhood, already starting her career starring in the London theater in a musical (she was chosen at the age of nine). That’s when she was diagnosed with the heart condition Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, which can cause a fast heartbeat as well as dizziness and heart flutters. “I rehearsed between visits on an drip, and being readmitted at night.” She jumps ahead half a dozen years, and young Jessica has joined the girl group Soul Deep while attending the academy. “I secured a deal, and I had a stroke. Then when I was planning to release songs in recently I had a collision and my throat was injured and I was unable to vocalize for a twelve months.”
Hey, I say, hold on, I am overwhelmed. A stroke so young? She nods|agrees
