Breast Cancer Awareness: Filmmaker Uses Art in Healing

Breast Cancer Survivor Kailee McGee Is Cancer-Free and Produced an Award-Winning Short Film About Her Journey

After her stage 4 breast cancer diagnosis, independent filmmaker Kailee McGee decided not to leave her director’s chair. Instead, she leaned in and produced an award-winning short film about her experience. And, thanks to her care team at Cedars-Sinai Cancer and Huntington Cancer Center, today McGee is cancer-free. 

“I’m on the other side of active treatment,” said McGee, who turned 37 in August. “I did chemotherapy, I had a double mastectomy, and I had radiation, and I’m still currently on an immunotherapy drug. But I want to point out that I’m cancer-free. I’ve been cancer-free for a while. I’ve gotten several clean scans, and that is just so exciting.”

After feeling a lump and having a mammogram and other tests, McGee was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer, an especially difficult type to treat. That’s because triple-negative cancer cells lack surface proteins that would make them vulnerable to estrogen receptor-targeted therapy or HER2-targeted therapy. Triple-negative is a rare type of the disease, representing only 10%-15% of breast cancers.

“Also, with treatments such as chemotherapy, those triple-negative breast cancers often outsmart the treatment. Fortunately, the addition of immune checkpoint inhibitors to the chemotherapy backbone represents a breakthrough in treating these cancers,” said McGee’s oncologist, Yuan Yuan, MD, PhD, director of Breast Medical Oncology at Cedars-Sinai Cancer. “Huntington Cancer Center is an affiliate of Cedars-Sinai Cancer, so we were able to offer Kailee leading-edge treatment close to her home.”

The cancer had spread from the breast to the lymph nodes in McGee’s neck, and Yuan recommended treating it aggressively. McGee underwent 16 rounds of chemotherapy, along with immunotherapy to help her immune system attack the cancer. After six months of therapy, she had a complete clinical response and the Cedars-Sinai Huntington Health tumor board decided to proceed with a double mastectomy. The surgery, performed by breast oncology surgeon Amy Polverini, MD, was followed by radiation treatment.

Ruth Williamson, MD, medical director of Radiation Oncology at Huntington Cancer Center, an affiliate of Cedars-Sinai Cancer, was McGee’s radiation oncologist. Williamson said that there was no evidence of active cancer after McGee’s chemotherapy and immunotherapy, and that radiation therapy reduced the risk that her cancer would return by 75%-80%.

“If there’s one cell left behind in the regional lymph nodes, the cancer comes back,” Williamson said. “The radiation is extremely effective for targeting the areas where it might come back, and increasing the chance that Kailee is going to be cured of this disease.”

In the middle of treatment, McGee decided to write, produce, direct and star in a film about her experience. Called “Can,” the film won the Audience Award at South by Southwest Film Festival earlier this year.  

“Creating art has always been the way that I’ve processed my own life, and the world, and what’s inspiring me or haunting me,” McGee said. “So I didn’t really know what else to do to make sense of this experience.”

At Kailee’s side throughout was her partner, JP Bolles, also a filmmaker and director.

“I think it was incredible to see Kailee have such a drive to do something,” Bolles said, “to take the experience that she was having and make art with it, and just how beautiful that is.”

McGee credits Bolles and her film project with creating a healing environment for her.

“I know that part of the reason that I was so optimistic and strong going through this journey was because of the support that I had from JP and from my family and friends,” McGee said. “I created this community with my collaborators and my friends to heal with me in the moment. It gave me a job and a purpose, and it gave me something to think about that wasn’t just going to doctor appointments and getting treatment.”

Rather than focusing on her cancer treatment, McGee’s film centers around what she calls her “existential identity crisis,” examining what it means to be a woman and an artist, and her inner struggle during treatment.

“At the beginning of cancer, I couldn’t wait for it to be over so I could close that chapter and never have to think about cancer again,” McGee said. “And now my reality is that in so many different ways—health and spiritually and community-wise—cancer is just part of who I am, and it’s part of my life, and it’s part of my story, and the journey continues, and acceptance of that is what I want to share with this film.”

After breast reconstruction surgery later this year with James Andersen, MD, McGee will continue to be monitored by Yuan—through imaging and a new type of test that looks for cancer DNA in her blood—to make sure she stays cancer-free.

Both Yuan and Williamson found McGee’s film eye-opening, and believe it has important messages for breast cancer survivors—and all women.

“I thought it was a beautiful way of letting women with breast cancer understand, especially those who have gone through a mastectomy, that those self-image issues and those personal issues are somewhat universal,” Williamson said, “and that we can talk about them and identify those issues and help.”