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The Daily Dish Odd Mom Out

Jill Kargman Reveals How Battling Cancer Changed Her

"I would have been dead within three years," the #OddMomOut star said of her melanoma diagnosis.

By Jocelyn Vena
Jill Kargman Found a Special Way to Honor Her Family

Jill Kargman's life changed completely when she was diagnosed with skin cancer at age 34. That huge diagnosis put the Odd Mom Out star straight into midlife crisis mode.

"For me, it was when I was 34 and was diagnosed with stage three melanoma and had all the lymph nodes ripped out of my vag and my doctors at Sloan-Kettering said that if you hadn’t caught this when I did — if it had just been three or six months later — I would have been dead within three years," she told The Hollywood Reporter about that time in her life. "So I chopped my hair, got a gun, started shooting at a shooting range, got some tattoos — I was feeling very much like my life was out of control and I wanted to do anything I could to control things, which of course you can never do."

The writer/actress admits she wears her scars from that time proudly. "This is going to sound weird, but I think scars are hot," she said. "I went to a dermatologist who saw my nine-inch scar and said, 'I have a great plastic surgeon who could help you with that,' but it didn’t even cross my mind to get rid of it. I was like, 'That’s OK — I love my scar.' Scars are a memento that you’ve been through something and a reminder on your body that you should appreciate how lucky you are."

Just like her scar, Jill also has no plans to alter her appearance anywhere else. "I like crow’s feet, too — I’ve had people offer to Botox them, but I’m like nope, I like that I have evidence of all my laughter. I laugh a lot; it’s a badge of honor," she said. "Where my vanity comes in is when I look really tired — that just means I’m stupid and I need to get more sleep. I have to get up at 7a.m., so I try to go to bed at 11 but it doesn’t always happen. So I harvest sleep on the weekends — I take a two-hour nap every Saturday, and I know there’s going to be wine when I wake up."

Find out more about Jill and her Odd Mom Out castmates, below.

The Odd Mom Out Cast Dishes Secrets...
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