21-year-old actress Jennette McCurdy, who stars as Sam on Nickelodeon’s Sam & Cat, lost her mother Debra McCurdy Friday morning after a 17-year battle with breast cancer TMZ reports.
McCurdy canceled her hosting gig this weekend at her network’s Worldwide Day of Play Saturday, an even where the network goes off-air for three hours to encourage children to go outside and play.
Her mom’s cancer had gone into remission for a number of years, but returned three years ago. In 2011 Jennette wrote a moving piece in the Wall Street Journal about her mother’s struggle with cancer.
Jennette wrote:
“In February 2010, my mother had sinus surgery and her doctors found breast cancer cells in her sinuses. After several scans, they also found cancer in her skull, lymph nodes, ribs, sternum, thoracic and lumbar spine and pelvis. And just a few weeks ago, they found cancer in my mother’s brain and she has started another round of chemotherapy for the cancer in the rest of her body. She can barely stand, yet she gets up before me in the morning so that she can make me a mug of hot chocolate. I don’t know how she does it, but she claims it’s what makes her happy.”
Jennette’s mom was first diagnosed when Jennette was only two, in 1995, and her brothers were 5, 7, and 11. It sounds like Debra was a wonderful lady, and quite a fighter. Rest in peace.
