Just a few days ago I was telling my eight year-old son about Roger Ebert, and how there’s this legendary film critic who lost his ability to speak but who is able to speak using his own voice thanks to technology. (You can hear Ebert’s new computer voice, made using his own voice from old recordings of his show with the late Gene Siskel, at around 7:20 into his TED talk video here. He says his computer voice is still being worked on and he prefers the Apple “Adam” voice which comes bundled with the OS.) Ebert’s story is an inspiration to so many of us, but he probably doesn’t want people to see him that way, he just keeps doing the job he loves and helping us make decisions about which movies to see. Sadly, Ebert recently announced that his cancer has returned. (He was cancer free as of 2010, after losing part of his jaw and voice to thyroid cancer.) He writes that he’ll continue to work but it will be remotely and that he’ll cut back his schedule. Ebert, 70, is taking a “leave of presence.”

Typically, I write over 200 reviews a year for the Sun-Times that are carried by Universal Press Syndicate in some 200 newspapers. Last year, I wrote the most of my career, including 306 movie reviews, a blog post or two a week, and assorted other articles. I must slow down now, which is why I’m taking what I like to call “a leave of presence.”

What in the world is a leave of presence? It means I am not going away. My intent is to continue to write selected reviews but to leave the rest to a talented team of writers handpicked and greatly admired by me. What’s more, I’ll be able at last to do what I’ve always fantasized about doing: reviewing only the movies I want to review.

At the same time, I am re-launching the new and improved Rogerebert.com and taking ownership of the site under a separate entity, Ebert Digital, run by me, my beloved wife, Chaz, and our brilliant friend, Josh Golden of Table XI. Stepping away from the day-to-day grind will enable me to continue as a film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times, and roll out other projects under the Ebert brand in the coming year.

The immediate reason for my “leave of presence” is my health. The “painful fracture” that made it difficult for me to walk has recently been revealed to be a cancer. It is being treated with radiation, which has made it impossible for me to attend as many movies as I used to. I have been watching more of them on screener copies that the studios have been kind enough to send to me. My friend and colleague Richard Roeper and other critics have stepped up and kept the newspaper and website current with reviews of all the major releases. So we have and will continue to go on.

At this point in my life, in addition to writing about movies, I may write about what it’s like to cope with health challenges and the limitations they can force upon you. It really stinks that the cancer has returned and that I have spent too many days in the hospital. So on bad days I may write about the vulnerability that accompanies illness. On good days, I may wax ecstatic about a movie so good it transports me beyond illness.

[From The Chicago Sun Times via Pajiba]

I’m glad he’ll still be writing, he has such talent, and I hope that he beats cancer again soon. He’s an incredible man with so much insight and wit. So many of us are hoping that he’ll continue to write for years to come. I’m thinking positive thoughts for him and his devoted wife, Chaz.

Roger Ebert and his wife Chaz are shown in 2010, 2011 and 2012. Credit: WENN.com and PCNPhotos

We heard the sad news last week that Valerie Harper, TV’s beloved Rhoda from “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and her own spin-off, has terminal brain cancer at the age of 73. People Magazine put Harper on their cover, and it was a nice tribute to an icon from the 70s. Harper did a two-part interview with The Today Show, the second segment of which aired today. The interview made me admire Harper and not feel sorry for her at all. She was upbeat, optimistic yet realistic I guess is the way to put it. She said that she’s open to miracles, but that she’s also willing to embrace whatever happens when she passes. In some parts of her interview, she was accompanied by her devoted husband of 34 years, Tony Cacciotti. She also has an adult daughter who was shown laughing with her in her kitchen. I was moved by what Harper had to say about her diagnosis and how she’s approaching life.

“It has been so warming and so comforting and … I feel the embrace,” Harper said in an interview airing Tuesday. “It feels awful damn good to be open about it, face it and see what you can do.”

Facing her diagnosis of leptomeningeal carcinomatosis — which affects the membranes surrounding her brain — Harper told Guthrie that she doesn’t think about what-ifs, and is ready for what comes next.

“Forgiving is giving up the wish that things could have been different. They weren’t. That’s the past. Let it go. I have cancer. It’s in my brain…. What are you gonna do about it?” Harper said. “I’ve had such a great run, Savannah. I’m going on 74. I want people to be less afraid. You know, that’s … that’s really I guess why I’m sharing it.”

Part of the “great run” Harper refers to includes her stint as Rhoda Morgenstern on “The Mary Tyler Moore show” and later its spinoff, “Rhoda.” Rhoda, says Harper, has “been the wind and the sails of my career,” a charmed time of life. “I didn’t know (then that) ‘I’m part of a classic,’ you just know you’re doing a wonderful show.”

Grateful for the past, Harper is now looking ahead, and doing so with a positive outlook despite her diagnosis. Harper recalled wisdom imparted by an internist, who Harper says told her, “‘Valerie, anyone that’s been in oncology for any number of years has seen spontaneous remission. They just have.’ So what I’m saying, is keep your consciousness — your thoughts — open to infinite possibility and keep yourself open to miracles.”

[From The Today Show]

This story touched me very deeply, particularly because my parents have lost some of their oldest and dearest friends to cancer recently. I wanted to share something one of my mom’s friends wrote for the program at her funeral. It was so simple yet it captured for me everything that you would want to say at your funeral. She wrote “Tell my friends thank you for coming, and that I love them.” I can’t write much more about it.

Here are the two parts of Valerie’s interview:

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Sharon Osbourne, 60, is a colon cancer survivor. She was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2002, at which time she was told her prognosis was just 33% given that the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes. We saw Sharon’s cancer battle on MTV’s The Osbournes, which was airing at the time. (It’s hard to believe that they were the first reality show family, given the torrent of crap that has followed.) It’s 10 years later, Sharon has had many, mostly cosmetic, surgeries since, and she’s had yet another one in her battle against cancer. In a new interview with Hello! Magazine, Sharon reveals that she had a double mastectomy after a test showed she had a mutation in the breast cancer gene. Apparently she didn’t have cancer in her breasts, but a mutation in that specific gene means that she has a 45% or higher chance of developing cancer before age 70. Sharon had breast implants which were removed in 2011 due to complications. In this latest surgery, her natural breast tissue was removed as a prophylactic measure against potential breast cancer.

She said: ‘As soon as I found out I had the breast cancer gene, I thought: “The odds are not in my favour.”

‘I’ve had cancer before and I didn’t want to live under that cloud: I decided to just take everything off, and had a double mastectomy.’

The gruelling 13-hour operation, which can take between three to six weeks to recover from, was approved by her doctor after she made the discovery.

Mrs Osbourne said genetic tests showed she had inherited a gene fault which increased the risk of breast cancer.

Some people with these gene faults, who often have a strong family history of the disease, can have a 45 to 65 per cent chance of developing breast cancer before the age of 70.

She added: ‘For me, it wasn’t a big decision, it was a no-brainer. I didn’t want to live the rest of my life with that shadow hanging over me.

‘I want to be around for a long time and be a grandmother to Pearl. I didn’t even think of my breasts in a nostalgic way, I just wanted to be able to live my life without that fear all the time.’

But despite the deeply invasive treatment and gruelling recovery time, the star said she did not feel sorry for herself.

She added: ‘It’s not “pity me”, it’s a decision I made that’s got rid of this weight that I was carrying around.’

Her account, given in an interview with Hello! magazine, also included details about how breast implants to increase her chest size to 34DD had leaked into her stomach wall.

In a 2010 interview she said she regretted having them and said it was ‘like having a waterbed on your chest’. And last year she revealed she had been forced to remove the implants after discovering they were faulty.

The star, who has had cosmetic surgery on her face, stomach and legs, now says it has put her off having further work done.

She said: ‘Sometimes I’ll see a photo and I’ll think, “My face looks plastic”; it can look so unnatural from certain angles. Now I am definitely, definitely done. You can’t buy your youth back, no matter how much money you’ve got. I won’t be going under the knife again.’

Mrs Osbourne has admitted spending £300,000 on cosmetic surgery, earning her the title of Queen of Nip and Tuck in a 2008 poll.

[From The Daily Mail]

The Daily Mail’s excerpt from Hello’s article doesn’t specify whether Sharon had reconstructive surgery yet, or if she intends to, but I’m assuming she will. (This issue of Hello is not yet available digitally or I would check.) I liked what she said about how her face looks plastic and how you can’t buy youth back. At least she’s realistic about it. As for her double mastectomy based on one faulty gene – it sounds extreme to me, but I’ve read that the risk of cancer is very high with that particular gene mutation. Some women who have family histories of breast cancer, and who learn that they have a defective BRCA gene, chose to have their breasts removed. (There are two genes which can predict an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer, you can read more facts about them here. Also here’s a link to a first person account from a woman who chose to have a prophylactic double mastectomy at 28.) Sharon knows that cancer can spread and she doesn’t want to take that chance.

Sharon is shown on 9-19-, 10-2 and 10-13-12. Credit: FameFlynet and WENN.com

Back in August of 2008, Christina Applegate made the difficult decision to have a double mastectomy following a breast cancer diagnosis. She opted for a mastectomy because she didn’t want to worry about making sure the cancer was eradicated, because she had the breast cancer gene (her mother is a two time breast cancer survivor as well) and presumably because she wanted to have children and chemotherapy would have significantly reduced her chances. Following reconstructive surgery, Applegate did have a baby a little over a couple of years later, with her partner, Martin Lenoble. It’s a sweet story of triumph after cancer, although of course there’s more to it. In a new interview with More magazine, Applegate gave some additional details of what she was going through at the time, and it sounds just awful. She says she wasn’t ready to reveal her cancer diagnosis but that she had to, essentially. (A tabloid reported the story before she announced it and forced her hand.) After she went public with the news, she kind of “crashed,” which is to be expected. Here’s more:

The Up All Night star, who underwent a double mastectomy in 2008 after being diagnosed with the same disease her mother survived, opens up about her painful struggle to come to terms with losing both of her breasts in the November 2012 issue of More magazine, and RadarOnline.com has the details.

“I miss my exquisite breasts sometimes,” she reveals, in reference to a line about her natural mammary glands in the movie Anchorman.

The 40-year-old explains how she was denied the time to grieve, as the media learned about her surgery immediately following the operation.

“The good thing is that we got the information out, but talking about the facts of the disease, I didn’t have to see what was going on with me. I think when it slowed down, all that came crashing down,” she says.

With the help of her friends and family and a spiritual advisor, she overcame what she calls a “total emotional collapse.”

Soon after, she reunited with old friend Martyn LeNoble, and the two quickly fell in love.

“We had always cared deeply for one another when we were friends. And he came and put me under his wing. That was it – he was supposed to come.”

Applegate, who welcomed her first child, Sadie Grace, in early 2011, hopes to have another with her partner, but sadly, it may not be an option.

“Because of some things that happened during my pregnancy, I don’t know if I can. I hope I can. We’ll see,” she says.

[From Radar Online]

That’s really sweet about her partner being there for her during her health crisis, and how that brought them together. I’m glad she’s ok now, and hope she’s able to have another baby because it sounds like she really wants one. I admire Applegate a lot, and I find her very funny. This reminds me to watch Up All Night. I only saw the first couple of episodes last season and it was good. The thing is, it depicted parenthood so realistically that I found it a little stressful! It wasn’t “fake” enough for a sitcom, if that makes sense.

Here’s the clip where Christina Applegate talks about her “exquisite breasts” on Anchorman. It’s at about 1:40:

Photo credit: WENN.com and FameFlynet

As you may know, country singer Kellie Pickler shaved her head in solidarity with her best friend, Summer Miller, who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer at 35. Prior to Summer’s first chemotherapy session, Kellie went with her to shave their heads together. They documented the process in a video and series of photos they shared with Good Morning America. Kellie has been very low-key about this whole process. She did her first interview recently, with Ellen DeGeneres, and her segment airs today. Too Fab had a clip (above) in which you could see how personal this was for Kellie and how genuine she is about helping her friend. Kellie got choked up when talking about her grandmother passed away from cancer, just one day after she was diagnosed. Here’s the story from Too Fab. Kellie said she was with Summer for her first cancer treatment and that she’s doing well:

Kellie Pickler is bald and beautiful after shaving her head to support one of her best friends who was diagnosed with breast cancer — but she was very nervous about getting buzzed.

“I will be honest with you. I was a little nervous and she was too,” Pickler says in an interview with Ellen DeGeneres. “We were both a little nervous, hope we don’t have some crazy birthmark or a wart or a mole!”

Despite their reservations, Kellie and Summer both still went through with it — and Kellie has no regrets.

“That is probably one of the most beautiful moments of my life. Just being able to do that with her,” she adds. “The last thing that you want for anyone that you love …is that you don’t want them to walk through the valley lone.”

She adds, “I think it’s important to have a cancer buddy.”

Pickler also gives an update on Summer, who just started chemo.

“She’s doing good,” Pickler says. “Of course it’s hard. It’s hard on your body. It’s hard on your mind. It’s not an easy thing to go through. But she’s a storing woman and she’s handled it with such grace.”

[From Too Fab]

Kellie explained that she thinks of Summer as her big sister, adding that “I don’t think blood makes a family.” She added later “it’s just hair, you know.”

I have to say I found Kellie so genuine and real, and that I admire what she did for her friend. She’s the kind of friend you need in a crisis, someone who will stand by you when you need them the most. Those type of friends are very rare.

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E! News anchor Giuliana Rancic went back to work last Tuesday just two weeks after undergoing a double mastectomy and reconstruction surgery. It wasn’t easy for her at all. The reality star told The Today Show in an interview on Friday that she feels great now, but that the immediate post-op recovery period was “hell” and that it was “horrible.”

“I knew this was going to be a tough surgery, but I in no way want to minimize it,” Giuliana told Matt Lauer during an interview on NBC’s the “Today” show on Friday. “Yes, I’m two and a half weeks out, but up until a week and a half ago it was hell. It was horrible.”

The 37-year-old E! TV host also revealed she suffered from an unforeseen complication that made the recovery process even more difficult – she was unable to tolerate morphine, the pain medication used to manage her post-surgery pain.

“I went into surgery at 4 PM and got out around 9:30 PM,” she told Matt. “By 4 AM I had to get off the morphine because I was so sick and I thought to myself, ‘[If you throw up] you have to engage all of your chest muscles,’ and I just had my chest operated on.”

Though she’s “feeling great” now, Giuliana still relies on husband Bill Rancic to help her accomplish everyday tasks while she continues to recover.

“I can’t really turn much to put my seatbelt on,” she said. “He has to help me get in and out of bed, get dressed…it’s a lot of limited mobility and pain.”

[From omg.yahoo.com]

Toward the end of that interview, Matt asked Giuliana’s husband Bill if he was afraid that she was pushing herself too hard after having surgery. He said “We don’t do anything without the doctor’s approval. This is something that she was intent on doing. She wanted to turn the negative into a positive. The response and the number of people who said ‘I went in and got my first mammogram…’ it’s worth it if you can save one life during this process.” As I mentioned in an earlier story, I did get an appointment with an OB/GYN to look at my tatas. She did a sonogram of my breast tissue and said that everything looks fine and that it wasn’t necessary for me to get a mammogram at this point. I honestly would not have made that appointment if it wasn’t for Giuliana’s story.

In a way I don’t think Giuliana is painting a realistic picture of this process at all. Even if she’s saying that the post op recovery was “horrible,” we’re seeing her looking perfect on TV two weeks later. I would like to see her take more time before going back to work. If she wasn’t such a motivated go-getter, she might not be as open with the press about her cancer battle, though. She’s definitely helped raise awareness of a disease that affects so many women.

Giuliana is shown interviewing Angelina Jolie on 12-5-11 and with Bill on 9-8-11. Credit: WENN.com

E! correspondent Giuliana Rancic, 37, first went public with her breast cancer diagnosis this October. Early stage cancer was found in both of her breasts following two rounds of IVF treatment. An initial lumpectomy was unsuccessful at removing all the cancer, and she just had a double mastectomy with reconstruction. In an appearance on the Today Show earlier this month, Giuliana was with a breast cancer specialist who explained that the reconstruction options for mastectomies are so much more natural now than they were in the past. According to that doctor, most women opt for reconstruction immediately after the breasts are removed, which is what she usually recommends. The good news is that Giuliana is doing well and her husband said she was even cracking jokes after her surgery:

The E! News and Fashion Police mainstay underwent successful double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery last night for her breast cancer, and, according to husband Bill Rancic, came through in great spirits.

“G is doing really well,” Bill exclusively tells E! News. “Her surgery lasted about four hours and the doctors were very pleased with the result.”

“She had a little bit of pain through the night but is feeling much better this morning and was cracking jokes.”

Sounds like Giuliana is already back in fine form.

Indeed, she even had her own message to share.

“I want to thank all the viewers and fans for their support and prayers,” she says. “The tweets and notes have not gone unnoticed. I am very grateful.”

[From E! Online]

In the comments in our last post on this, I learned so much from those of you who have had cancer. Two of you have had lung cancer and noted that it’s the most common cancer of all. Many nonsmokers get it as well. Also, I was touched by Beryl’s comment that she’s a cancer survivor and that it’s hard to predict how Giuliana will feel emotionally during her illness. Giuliana has said that she’s keeping strong and will be fine, but as Beryl mentioned cancer can an emotional roller coaster. She may “sacrifice some of her personal life to help others,” but it could ultimately be harder for Giuliana to have to go through all this in the public eye. Hopefully she’s right about how she’ll feel and she’ll be ok. Best wishes to Giuliana for a speedy recovery.

*That title is a homage to the “save the tatas” campaign. Giuliana and Bill are shown outside the Today Show and The Wendy Williams show on 12/5 and 12/6. Credit: Pacific Coast News

I will admit that I’m torn on what to think about E! correspondent Giuliana Rancic’s latest announcement that she has breast cancer and is undergoing a double mastectomy. It makes me feel like a bad person to admit that. On one side she’s going through an incredibly difficult health battle and is raising awareness of a disease that affects one in 8 women in the U.S. On the other she’s engaged in some obvious self promotion, which is understandable given her job. This is a woman with a reality show and a lifestyle website. I feel for her that she has cancer and I do think it’s brave of her to go public with this, but I still can’t help but see her as a mix of Gwyneth Paltrow and The Kardashians.

So anyway Giuliana went on The Today Show earlier this week to announce that the lumpectomy she had for early stage breast cancer (which she announced in October) wasn’t effective and that she would be having a double mastectomy and reconstruction. Then she went on Wendy Williams and The Ryan Seacrest show (he’s her boss at E! after all) and now she’s on the cover of People. I would rather see People highlight this important health issue than try and make us care why the latest bachelorette dumped her boyfriend.

Giuliana Rancic knows she’ll have scars from her upcoming double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery. And she plans to embrace them.

“I think scars tell such an incredible story,” the E! News anchor, 37, tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story. “I’ll always look at them and think, ‘Wow, I made it through that.’ ”

Still, she admits that there are moments as she lays in bed next to her husband Bill, 40, when impact of her shocking cancer diagnosis hits her.

“Usually it’s 2 in the morning, and I’ll turn around from Bill so I don’t wake him up, and I just cry,” she says. “I sob and think, ‘How did this happen?’ ”

Mostly, though, the “tough Italian woman,” as Bill calls his wife of four years, is determined to eradicate the disease that has turned her world upside down since being diagnosed three months ago.

“My breasts have never defined me – and now they never will,” says Giuliana, whose surgery is scheduled for Dec. 13.

[From People]

I hope she recovers fully, I hope she and Bill have that child they were hoping for all along, and I hope her story inspires others to get mammograms. For people with cancer, I hope they are inspired by Giuliana’s story to power through their treatment and stay positive. I think that I can listen to what she’s going through and feel for her, but still not be a huge fan, you know?

Here’s a clip of Giuliana and Bill on The Wendy Williams show. I do like Bill a lot.

Giuliana is shown interviewing Angelina Jolie on the red carpet on Monday. Credit: WENN.com

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Damn, this story keeps reminding me that I need to get my first mammogram. I’m not putting it off I swear, I just need to get a new Gyn and the one I called under my insurance had a super bitchy receptionist that I talked to for a while and got the worst impression of. I know that shouldn’t deter me, but it made me put it off and not bother to make an appointment, so maybe I’m looking for excuses. Anyway E! host Guiliana Rancic was diagnosed with breast cancer this summer after she had a mammogram at the insistence of her fertility doctor. The beginning stages of cancer were found in both of her breasts, and Giuliana underwent a lumpectomy and radiation as well as had some lymph nodes removed. Now Giuliana has announced that she’ll be getting a double mastectomy, because the lumpectomy wasn’t able to clear all the cancer from one of her breasts. Giuliana explained that it was the best course of treatment and that she and her husband weighed the options carefully.

If I had chosen to just do another lumpectomy and then do radiation, and then do estrogen therapy, which is two to five years of medication, that basically puts me into early menopause and then I would have to put off having a baby for several years. That was actually something we took into account. But to be honest, at the end all it came down to was just choosing to live and not looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life.

It could have come back more aggressively next time. For me it was just more important to get the cancer out. Basically with the double mastectomy I have less than a 1% chance of getting it back. With another lumpectomy, radiation and medication, I could have seen a 20-40% chance in my lifetime. [of the cancer returning]. To me it just wasn’t worth it.

Bill said that if Giuliana opted for another lumpectomy as treatment she would have to get mammograms every six months for the rest of her life. I actually started tearing up when Giuliana recalled what Bill told her about getting a mastectomy. He said “I just need you around for the next fifty years. I don’t care what you look like… I just need you around for the next fifty years so let’s just get you healthy.” What a great guy Bill is.

In a later segment they had a breast cancer doctor on and she said that women usually have reconstruction almost immediately after the mastectomy surgery. As opposed to 20 years ago, the reconstruction options are much more advanced and natural looking. Plus I don’t mean to sound callous, but so many women have fake boobs. It’s not like Giuliana will be out of place in Hollywood.

I hope that Giuliana has a swift recovery and that she and Bill are able to realize their dream of having children. It could happen for them. Christina Applegate had a double mastectomy in 2008 and she welcomed a daughter in 2011.

These photos are from 11/19/11 and 11/5/11. Credit: WENN and Fame

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m not a fan of E! correspondent Giuliana Rancic. She’s superficial, she can be somewhat petty, and she has serious issues around eating and gaining weight, in that she refused to gain any even when her doctor told her it was medically necessary to realize her dream of becoming a mother.

Giuliana went public with her breast cancer diagnosis last month. Her cancer was discovered early when her doctor insisted she get a mammogram prior to her third round of IVF treatment. She underwent a double lumpectomy and was back to work at E! in about a week. In a new interview with Parade, Giuliana says that she’s happy to continue filming her reality show with her husband, and that she’s also really grateful for her job at E!. I prefaced all this with the fact that I don’t really like her, because after reading this interview I’m coming around. It sounds like this major health scare has changed her outlook:

On the feedback she received after revealing her breast cancer diagnosis.
“When I went public, I thought, ‘OK, I guess a couple of people are going to talk about this,’ but I couldn’t believe it. The outpouring and the love and support was just beyond anything I could have ever imagined. I really relied on a lot of those messages I was receiving through Twitter and email and through blogs right before the surgery and the week I was recovering. I know it sounds so cliché, but I think it helped me recover quicker and it got me in better spirits. The word I kept seeing over and over again was ‘strong.’ ‘Be strong, you’re strong.’ That word has never meant so much to me as it has this past month. I owe that all to the people behind me.”

On how she’s doing post-surgery.
“I’m good. I’m hanging in there. I have good days and bad days, but so far so good. I’m very optimistic and I’m just happy to have caught it early. I think that’s really the most important thing. Early detection means so much. I want women to make sure they’re taking care of their health and being proactive.”

She also received a lot of support from E! News co-anchor Ryan Seacrest.
“He’s great. I describe our relationships as like a brother-sister relationship. We pick on each other, he probably picks on me much more than I pick on him, but it’s like a brother would. We have a great time. He’s been great to work with all these years. I love working with him.”

On showcasing her life with husband Bill Rancic (an entrepreneur who won the first season of The Apprentice) on their reality show, Giuliana and Bill.
“I guess it all started on our wedding day. The Style Network made a TV special out of the wedding and we actually got used to having the cameras around pretty quickly. People loved that special so much that the network wanted to do a reality series with us.”

She has no regrets about showing the ups and downs of their life together.
“We just felt like with every trial and tribulation we’ve put on this show, people have told us how much they learned from it and how it made them feel less alone. We thought that was a pretty incredible opportunity. The fact that we can help people through our show is an honor. We’re happy to do it and it’s something that we continue to do. We really are like open books. It’s worth it to kind of sacrifice some of my personal life to help others.”

On balancing her busy schedule.
“I think it’s just about appreciating it. Yesterday, I did nine interviews with the London Olympic athletes for E! News and then I had a two-hour meeting after work on a project I’m doing, after that I went to have a drink with my husband and spent a little quality romantic time with him, and then I went to the George Clooney premiere for The Descendants and had some romantic time with him — just kidding! And then I cruised home and spent some time with my mom, who is in town. It seems crazy and it’s a long day and it’s exhausting, but whenever I feel it’s too much, I take a step back and think this is such a great job. I’m so fortunate to have it. I have never taken it for granted. Whenever things get a little too hectic or I feel like I’m going to break down, I just think about how lucky I am. I’m not digging ditches, this is not brain surgery, this is fun and I’m very lucky to have this job.”

[From Parade]

I really like what she said at the end, when she started bitching about her schedule and then checked herself by saying she’s not digging ditches or performing brain surgery. She gained some humility and it sounds like she’s not taking her life for granted now. Of course she went on prior to that about how her reality show, for which she’s being well paid and is even taking paid product endorsements, is some kind of noble endeavor to help couples who also struggle with infertility. Giuliana and Bill even did a commercial for Merck’s “fertility lifelines,” which I’m sure she’d say she did for humanitarian purposes. Still, baby steps. I’m hoping these two realize their dream of getting pregnant soon. They’ve been through a lot together, and Bill consistently comes across as a caring, committed guy.

Giuliana and Bill are shown on 11/19/11 at “The Cotton’s 24-Hour Runway Show,” credit: Fame. They’re also shown on 11/5/11 at a book signing and lighting the Macy’s tree in Chicago. Credit: WENN.com