Click photo for larger image. Listen In Listen to excerpts from Fran Drescher's conversation with Patricia Sheridan. To download the file to your computer, right click on the above link and select "Save Target As ..." After the file has finished downloading, double-click on the file to listen to the audio.

Television star for six seasons during the '90s on "The Nanny," Fran Drescher has taken her distinctive voice and is now using it to bring awareness to women's health issues. She is the author of "Cancer Schmancer" (Warner Books) and plans to launch a Cancer Schmancer nonprofit organization in June. She talks about the lessons learned fighting uterine cancer, surviving a violent crime and divorcing her high school sweetheart. Drescher, 49, will be in Pittsburgh Friday for "Women's Health & Environment: New Science, New Solutions Agenda." Because of overwhelming response, registration has closed. You can read more about the conference at www.womenshealthpittsburgh.org.

Q: You had to know your body very well to keep trying for two years and eight doctors to get the correct diagnosis.

A: I am unusually attuned to little, you know, symptoms of something. Certain changes, irregularities. That's when I encourage other women to become really like their own health and well-being detective, because you know your body. That's the kind of changing of women's health consciousness I hope to bring to the general public. We at Cancer Schmancer want to replant the landscape of women's health consciousness so that we become medical consumers rather than patients. Through the Cancer Schmancer movement we're going to unite as one collective voice. We are going to galvanize and alert Capitol Hill that the female vote is louder and more powerful than the richest corporate lobbyist.

Q: Did you become more spiritual?

A: I definitely feel like I got famous. I got cancer and I lived to talk about it. It's some part of the larger plan for me. I feel connected to an inner voice that I think is closest to my creator. I kept pursuing going to doctors. I mean how many people go for a second opinion when doctors are telling you, you are essentially well? I went for seven second opinions. I just had this feeling, and those feelings, intuition, should not be dismissed. They are being impressed upon us from a higher power. Turning pain into purpose is very healing.

Q: You've survived more than cancer. The rape incident. Your divorce from your high school sweetheart. What has helped you cope?

A: Well, you know, loved ones, therapy and a belief that being mired in pain is just going to embitter me. What I have to do is somehow make sense of the senseless. A great life lesson from this experience with the cancer is that we all kind of make plans for what we think our future is going to be but no one has a crystal ball. You have to be able to know when you've gotten sideswiped one Wednesday afternoon and your life changes forever that you must let go of that plan. Let it go. Write a new plan. Every experience that is offered to you is an opportunity for you to grow. When I was a victim of a violent crime, I didn't really spend a lot of time delving into the pain that experience caused me. I didn't allow myself to be vulnerable and reach out to other people. I picked myself up. I dusted myself off and I marched on. Anything short of that I felt was an indulgence. Ten years later one of the more exploitative magazine shows did a whole thing about my rape. I was a struggling actress when the incident occurred. It brought it up in a way that caused me to have a little bit of a breakdown. I needed to feel the feelings I had sublimated a decade earlier. If you don't feel your feelings and experience your pain and allow yourself to be vulnerable, first of all you are not functioning like a well-rounded human being. Those feelings manifest in other ways, i.e cancer. I am much better now because I realize I am not a super woman. I am vulnerable just like everyone else.

Q: Are you friendly with your ex-husband?

A: Very. We are best friends.

Q: Do you believe in soul mates, and are you looking for yours?

A: I do. I don't think looking is the... I think energies find each other. So you know I let life unfold.

Q: How much of your public personality did you invent and how much is just you?

A: All of my persona is me, but not all of me is my persona. I'm probably a more accessible, open, honest, celebrity than you are ever going to meet. I don't know if any other celebrity has ever written a chapter about what it's like to have sex for the first time after having a radical hysterectomy. I actually think I'm am the first one. (laughing)

Q: And a lot of women are grateful to you.

A: Exactly, so if I'm going to do it, it's to help people. It's not going to be to give myself a pat on the back or do it for the sake of ego.