Ashley Park hails 'miracle' recovery
Ashley Park thinks it is a "miracle" she's still alive after the "fluke" experiences of battling cancer as a teenager and being hospitalised with septic shock earlier this year.
Ashley Park thinks it is a "miracle" she's still alive.
The 33-year-old star - who battled leukaemia when she was 15 - was hospitalised with critical septic shock in January and despite her "fluke" health battles, the 'Emily in Paris' actress feels "lucky".
Noting how using humour "makes it easier" to talk about her problems, she told the new issue of America's Cosmopolitan magazine: “As an adult, I understand what coping mechanisms are. Stuff I didn’t know when I was a teenager.
“And even though both of the extreme illnesses I’ve had have been such flukes in a way — no one who’s 15 should have cancer, and no one who’s my age should have septic shock — I feel lucky, actually. It’s been kind of a miracle how I’ve recovered.”
Ashley was on vacation with her boyfriend and co-star Paul Forman when she fell ill this year and she doesn't "think[she] would have made it" without his support in unfamiliar surroundings.
She said: “When I went to the ER and ICU for the first time, I was in the Maldives with Paul. I don’t think I would’ve made it without him. Everybody else was on the other side of the world from us.
“Once I got there, I got really sick with tonsillitis. Then everything really started going wrong.
"I was in different ICUs and then air ambulances for a month. I couldn’t leave because I wasn’t allowed to fly.
"When I finally could, it was a shorter distance to Paris than to LA, so I had to go straight to Paris to recover, not home.
“When I woke up in the hospital and they said, ‘You have septic shock.' I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I am shocked I have sepsis!’ ”
Ashley's hospitalisation was a wake-up call for her and she's pledged to take better care of herself in the future.
She admitted: “I pushed myself too far. I was not listening to my body.
"Now, I’m thinking about my future and asking, ‘Am I putting myself in a position where I’m going to be able to do my best?’ That starts with my health.
"I’m getting back to my old self. I look and feel better, and I’m trying to stay as stable as I can and keep the same energy that people expect.”
