Porn Valley- The only thing different about Nicki Hunter is the fact that she's wearing a Sinead O'Connor buzz cut.
Hunter's regained almost all the 25 pounds she lost after she had been diagnosed early this year with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. The doctors had given her a 50-50 chance to make it to December. But Hunter beat it.
"Of course I was going to beat it," smiles Hunter. "I have boys. I have a family."
For now, Hunter's been working as a makeup artist, and I saw her today on David Christopher's set. Christopher was shooting a face sitting scene with Daphne Rosen for www.deviantdavid.com. And I invited Hunter to come on KSEX with me on Wednesday at 4pm. She said she'd be happy to.
The one thing Hunter said she missed during her convalescence was the Internet.
"I would have done so much if I was connected with the world," she says.
Hunter began feeling symptoms last August.
"It got really bad by last October," she says. "It had never occurred to me that I had cancer. Not even a blip in my mind and I'm pretty good at self-diagnosis. [She was a nurse.]
"It wasn't even feasible in my own mind that I had cancer. I thought I had bronchitis or that something was wrong with my back. I thought I had nerve problems, something like that. I was having night sweats. I was having severe fatigue. I was tired all the time. It took a lot of energy just to get out of bed in the morning. And I thought it was just me overworking myself. I had no idea it was something more physical. So I just kept pushing myself and pushing myself."
"By October I was having heart palpitations where my heart would just race out of nowhere," she says. "I could be walking and my heart would just start beating. I was having trouble breathing. It felt like there was a weight on my lungs. It seemed much more difficult than it should have been for my physical body."
By the time November and December rolled around, Hunter had severe back pain to the extent where it was contorting her body. Hunter couldn't get out of bed and was on pain pills. She couldn't function.
"It was insane," she recalls. "I was having these spasms in my back that would put me on the ground and I couldn't get up until they were gone."
According to Hunter, all the pain was being caused by tumors that were developing in her chest. She had tumors the size of a football wrapped around her heart and her lungs. Her lungs were filling up with fluid and the back spasms were from the tumors pressing against her spine.
"They were actually interfering with the nerves there and causing such dibilitating pain that I couldn't figure it out," says Hunter. "I kept putting it off and kept putting it off. Until I got to the point where I had to go to the doctor and see what was wrong."
Hunter finally went to the doctor and asked for an x-ray of her back.
"The back was fine but we decided to take chest x-rays, too," she adds.
"When we got the films back, the entire left side of my chest was completely whited out. It was filled with fluid and the tumors were completely congesting my whole area. My resting heart rate was 145. And your heart rate's supposed to be 98 to maybe 110. So when I was doing scenes or trying to exercise I was going over 200 beats a minute. My heart was racing to the point of bursting out of my chest."
Not wanting to alarm her family, Hunter waited until after the holidays were over then checked herself into the hospital.
"They started me on intensive chemotherapy," she states. "It took them a couple of weeks to diagnose what I had. A.L.L. is not common in people my age and especially not common in girls. And I spent the first four months almost exclusively in the hospital. I got really, really sick. I came home after getting a really bad dose of chemotherapy and then I ended up with sepsis. That's a blood bacetria that just ravages your body. And when you don't have an immune system, I almost died. I almost slipped into a coma."
"But I beat that sickness," she says proudly. "The actual tumors didn't kill me as much as the chemotherapy affected me. Just having to survive that was excruciating. But for the past month to two months I've been feeling like myself again."
"I'm not going through intensive chemotherapy any more," she continues. "I'm being put on a regimen where I have to take chemotherapy pills every day for the next two years of my life. It's not going to affect my hair. My hair's going to grow back. My immune system is still going to be slightly compromised so I have to be careful about being sick. Which is why I won't be able to come back to the industry full fledge. It's just not going to be an option for me."
"Josh [her husband] and I are going to come into the industry and just start performing together," she reveals. "I think it's going to be a lot of fun. I miss it. I really, really do."
Hunter says even if she did work with other guys it would have to be with condoms.
"I have to be careful and protect myself," she says. "It' a life and death situation."
There's been talk of Hunter doing a Pussy Party as early as two weeks from now for Cousin Stevie.
"I'm going to see if it's going to work," says Hunter. "I'm going to have to have a couple of stipulations around it. Let's say we're talking about it."
"But I'm definitely directing a whole lot," she adds. "I've got a couple of different projects. SexZ Pictures has talked to me about one where it involves screenwriting and I'm not going to say much about that. But I am doing a lot of directing for both Venus Girls and Mean Bitches.
"I keep getting the nod from Hustler so whenever they hand me the budget for another movie, I'm still with them, technically. I've got a lot of stuff on the table."
Hunter said she's been going to the gym and is back horseback riding. She also has a Playboy show Thursday nights - Private Calls- from 7pm to 9pm PST.
"I'm having so much fun with that, I adore it," says Hunter who's been doing the show for the past three months.
"They started me when I was in the hospital and I would just do it when I was out," she adds. "I love Playboy. They do a great job and it's really exciting and thrilling."
The outpouring of all the Nicki love flabbergasted Hunter, especially, and how everyone rallied behind her and her family.
"I would have expected a little pat on the head from people, but these people would open their wallets to me. Here, what do you need? Are you okay? How's the kids? Can I help out in any way. People I wouldn't expect to do that would walk up to me and say they were really worried about me. That really touched me. I didn't realize how many true friends I had in this industry. I wouldn't have my house now if it weren't for that. I don't know what would have happened if I didn't have all the help.
"I didn't have any family here or any health insurance. All of a sudden I dropped out of life for nine months."
