Katie Couric, a former co-anchor of NBC’s “TODAY” show, opened up about her recent breast cancer diagnosis Monday, saying she was “lucky” it was detected early and turning her story into a message for other women to keep up with their mammogram exams.
Couric, 65, revealed Wednesday that she was diagnosed on June 21, underwent surgery on July 14 and began radiation on Sept. 7.
On the “TODAY” show Monday, Couric said she’s feeling well after finishing 15 days of radiation.
“I’m feeling great. I’m just getting over a cold … but I’m feeling just fine. I finished radiation last week. They said it made you tired, I was actually not too tired from it. I had a lumpectomy in July,” she shared.
“I just feel super lucky that it was diagnosed when it was. That I went even though I was late, that I went when I did,” she added.
Couric revealed she was initially “stunned” by the news, but relieved by the early detection at stage 1A.
She said when she went for her exam in the summer she had her phone’s camera ready hoping to share the experience with her followers. But then, her radiologist told her to her put the phone away.
“I was like ‘Uh oh what does that mean,’ and she said, ‘I think there’s something we really need to biopsy and I want to do it today.’ So I thought, ‘Oh my God, you must be kidding me.'”
“I found out the next days, she called me, I was pretty stunned. I think those words, ‘It’s cancerous or you have cancer’ do stop you in your tracks,” Couric added.
“But she told me it was treatable, we needed to have a plan. So I went from feeling shocked to not that shocked given my family’s history, to relieved because my exposure to cancer with Jay and Emily and my mother-in-law … they were all advanced and the prognosis was really tough so I felt so grateful honestly,” she said.
Couric’s diagnosis came on her eighth wedding anniversary to John Molner and the news reminded her of her family members with the disease, including her first husband, Jay Monahan, who died of colon cancer in 1998 when he was 42.
Couric is now dedicated to urging other women to be adamant about getting their mammograms. In an essay on her Katie Couric Media website, she wrote, “Please get your annual mammogram. I was six months late this time.”
“I shudder to think what might have happened if I had put it off longer. But just as importantly, please find out if you need additional screening,” she said.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
