I’m Kristi Waters. I am from Corpus Christi, Texas, and I am a drag queen. Started in Corpus doing drag and I kind of flourished more over here in San Antonio. 

Around the end of 2024, I noticed a pain that I was having, and I just kind of put it off and I would go to work. It wasn’t until the beginning of ’25, 2025, I was out to dinner with some friends. We were sitting there, and I, at one point, had to go to the restroom.

And I went to the restroom and when I came back, Cassandra, my friend, she said, “You look real white. Like, you look too white.” 

I was like, “I’m fine. Like, I just, I just wanna go home. I’m tired.” 

My other friend Jamie said, “No, we’re gonna take you to the… to the hospital.” 

And I’m like, “No, no, like, I’m fine.” 

They kind of forced me, and I was in their car with them, so I couldn’t, like, just go on my merry way. And they kind of were the ones that, like, paid that initial fee to, like, get into the urgent care and all that. And then the doctor came in. They, like, they examined me, all of that. They looked at the abscess, and it had ruptured. 

And she said, “You have to go to the hospital. Like, you’re losing too much blood.” 

I was like, “I don’t wanna go to the hospital. Like, no.” 

And she’s like, “Well, if you don’t go, you’re gonna die.” And so they rushed me in an ambulance down the street, and I guess it was, like, morphine or something that they put into me, and I kinda passed out, and I didn’t wake up till the next day going into surgery. I remember the last thing I think was we… I was, like, going down the hallway to, like, the emergency, the… not the emergency, the, to the surgery room. 

I woke up, like, a day and a half later out of, out of everything, and they had already changed my name from, like, my legal name to Kristi on the board. So I feel like somebody that was there knew who I was, and then I found out later it was the director of the floor, is someone that just goes to the shows. That’s when I kind of felt- I felt safer because they knew who I was and I knew they were gonna take care of me. 

A doctor comes in, I don’t… couldn’t even tell you who he was. He says, “We found a mass, and it’s cancer, and we have to treat it,” and this and that. And in my head it was, “You have cancer, you’re gonna die.” 

"We found a mass, and it's cancer, and we have to treat it."

He leaves, and then the nurses come in, and she was like, “I’m so sorry,” like, “he’s not supposed to say that. He did that all wrong,” and, you know, “Please don’t… it’s… You’ll be fine.” And I think because I felt so safe with them, the nurses, and, like, the director of the floor and all of that, I was like, “Okay, maybe it’s not over.” 

In bed in the hospital is when Jamie got me onto insurance, ’cause I had no insurance going into the hospital. We did all of that while I was in bed, and she was kinda like my voice for me, I guess, on the phone. 

So I get released from the hospital, and then my first initial question to the doctor that was there, I was like, “I have this big trip coming up. I have to perform in New York.” 

He said, “As long as you feel up to it, and, like, you’re, you’re comfortable doing it, then, yes, you can go.” A week later, I got on a plane, went to New York with Jamie and Cassandra, and they were there the whole time, so they kinda, like, took care of me over there, made sure that nothing happened, and performed. Came back home. I had my first meeting with the oncologist, and that’s when they c- they gave me the diagnosis that it was stage three, and that I had to start treatment with chemo and radiation. My waiting period was two weeks. 

In the city, I’m known as the one that’s always working. Like, I always have a show, and it would’ve been weird if I just stopped. So I thought, “Just say something, and just put a post.” When I posted it, I didn’t expect the reaction that I got. Everybody wanted the story. So the next day it was just interview after interview from different news sources that we had here, and the community started coming together of, “Let’s do this for you, and let’s do that for you, and have this fundraiser and, and this fundraiser.” 

And I had my, like, kinda like a farewell tour, but it was my kind of “see you later” sort of thing. It was 13 shows left that I had before I stopped everything. I had a show at the Tobin Center here in San Antonio. They do a pride brunch every year, and we bring in a Drag Race girl, and then they kinda turned it into a “let’s help you out” sort of a… sort of a show. 

And then my final show was on, July 5th before I said, “I’m done. I gotta take care of me.” On that Monday after that show, I had to go get my chemo port implanted. I think that’s when I finally realized this is… this is it. 

And I did 30 rounds of radiation every day for 30 days, and then two rounds of chemo. And so I was dealing with, like, the weakness of everything. Like, you, you get super weak. Your immune system goes down. And then on top of that, I’m dealing with now radiation burns. And the last week of radiation, I was having to be wheelchaired into the treatment center ’cause I just couldn’t… I didn’t have enough strength to, to walk. 

And then it was weeks after all of that is when I went back to the oncologist. We went back in and he said that, “There’s no more cancer cells in your blood. There’s no mass anymore. The mass is gone.” The day that I found out I was in remission was October 21st. I got a tattoo for it, and that was about three weeks ago. 

Not only just the gay community here, but the… the whole community itself of San Antonio kind of came together and helped keep me alive. 

If anything feels wrong, like, whatever it is, the smallest thing, go get checked. I think now my work is, yes, still be the fun drag queen and do all of that, but still kind of advocate for those people that are going through an issue, whether it’s cancer or something else or anything. It’s my way of kind of, like, giving back for what they’ve done for me this whole time, through this journey of mine.