Actress Marlyne Barrett is battling cancer.
The 44-year-old, perhaps best known for playing nurse Maggie Lockwood in the medical drama Chicago Med, was diagnosed with uterine and ovarian cancer in July.
Soon after, Barrett began an “aggressive” round of chemotherapy.
“The initial experience was a shock, a shock to my womanhood,” she recalled to People of her reaction to the diagnosis. “I didn’t believe them, but when they showed me the CT scan, I went, ‘Oh my word.’ The first questions were, ‘Am I going to live?’ I just fell into my husband’s arms. It still takes my breath away when I think about it.”
Barrett is set to undergo a third round of chemotherapy and recently shaved off her hair in front of her husband Gavin and their children.
“I did it in front of my babies so they’d see it was still Mommy. I wept, I wept, I wept. But it was a beautiful experience to do it in front of them,” the actress continued.
And despite Barrett’s health issues, she has continued to shoot episodes of Chicago Med.
“It brings me a lot of reprieve to think about something other than, ‘When is my next chemo shift?’ and ‘How am I going to hug my children?'” she added.
