Ditto

I'm typing this article out word for word 'cuz I can't find it anywhere online. Found in Saturday's Calgary Herald Entertainment section.

Singer struggles with cancer recovery Anastacia finding it difficult to return to a normal life. Judith Woods. The Telegraph. London

Anastacia bounces onto the stage, a tiny doll-like figure in customized combats, platform Guccis, and a tourniquet-tight vest bearing the legend Survivor Chick in gothic lettering.

"It's a bit awkward to be back up here. Great, but awkward," she tells the audience at the London recording studio where she is filming songs from her new album.

Then she lets rip with her astonishing, huge voice and, as the high notes ricochet off the ceiling, the crowd goes wild. She jokes with fans and leads them in a handclap, raunchily striding up and down the stage.

It's clear that, despite a year-long absence while she was treated for breast cancer, the 30-year-old American singer's star hasn't waned.

But afterwards, as she sits hugging her knees in her hotel suite, tears well up behind her trademark tinted glasses and for a moment she looks so uncharacteristically crestfallen that it's difficult not to scoop her up and give her a hug.

"That was so terrible out there," she says. "I just couldn't do it, physically. Every time I raised my arms, my heart was beating so fast I thought it was going to burst out of my chest. I thought that when my spirit came back and my voice returned, that the physical stuff would just be there, but I guess I was wrong."

Anastacia Newkirk, who was brought up in New York, first made the charts with her debut single I'm Outta Love in 2000. Since then she has sold more than 10 million records worldwide.

In January 2003, after a gruelling tour, she approached a plastic surgeon in order to have a breast reduction, partly for cosmetic reasons, but mostly on health grounds. The discomfort from two herniated discs in her neck was being painfully exacerbated by her DD breast size.

As part of the routine pre-operative tests, she was given a mammogram. She was diagnosed with suspected Stage 1 cancer, which a biopsy confirmed soon afterwards.

By then she was feeling nauseous and weak, but insisted on going ahead with a video shoot for the Chicago soundtrack, several days later.

Exhausted and throwing up between takes, she began to realize how serious her illness was. After filming, she went into surgery, where doctors discovered that the cancer had advanced to Stage 2 and was spreading rapidly.

In a seven-and-a-half-hour operation, surgeons removed almost 40 per cent of the breast, which was reshaped. At the same time, her other breast was reduced in size, leaving her with a C cup.

"In my naivety, I thought reconstruction would just be like scooping out mashed potato from one part and dolloping it into another; I had no idea how incredibly painful it would be," she says. "afterwards I was crying with pain, I didn't want to move and my energy was just so low."

Two months later, Anastacia was feeling well enough to begin work on her new album -- also called Anastacia -- and found herself tapping into a rich seam of creativity, as she sought to translate her experiences into her music. But it wasn't to last.

When she started her radiotherapy treatment, the impact was immediate and profound.

"My memory went, I felt stupid and slow and it was impossible to multi-task," she says.

"I suffered from insomnia, my voice disappeared and I felt as though I was a shell, and that the real me had been taken away.

"I was forced to live in the moment and to admit that I was powerless in the face of what was happening to me. That was my lowest point of all; giving into the reality of having cancer."

As the months passed, her brain rebooted and she managed to focus on her songwriting, although her sluggish responses led her to crash her car twice.

Despite her anguish that her energy levels haven't yet recovered, Anastacia now looks a picture of health, and triumphantly announces that she has just eaten a piece of lettuce in a new-found (if half-hearted) desire to overhaul her far from exemplary diet. She remains confident that she will be able to tour later in the year, once her stamina has recovered.

"I've got to build up my system so that I can run a marathon every night. Right now I can barely manage a 10-yard run, but it will come."