Watch: CNN Host Announces Cancer Diagnosis on Live TV
On Monday, CNN anchor Sara Sidner announced that she had been diagnosed with stage three breast cancer, during an emotional segment at the end of the “CNN News Central” on Monday.
Sidner told viewers that she is in her second month of chemotherapy and will undergo radiation treatment and a double mastectomy.
Sidner began by asking viewers to think of eight women that are important to them in their life and then saying that one of those eight women is likely to experience breast cancer at some point in their lifetimes, before revealing that she had been diagnosed with the disease.
“I have never been sick a day in my life, I don’t smoke, I rarely drink, breast cancer does not run in my family, and yet here I am with stage 3 breast cancer,” Sidner said, as she began to become choked up. “It is hard to say out loud.”
Sidner said that the diagnosis is not a “death sentence” for women nowadays, reading off statistics saying that black women are 41% more likely to die from breast cancer than their white counterparts. The anchor said she “thanked” cancer for choosing her because it forced her to appreciate the little things in life.
“I’m learning that no matter what hell we go through in life, that I am still madly in love with this life, and just being alive feels very different for me now,” she said. “I’m happier because I don’t stress about foolish little things that used to annoy me, and now every single day that I breathe another breath, I can celebrate that I’m still here with you, I am here with my co-anchors, my colleagues, my family, and I can love and cry and dream and hope. And that, my dear friends, is enough.”
Sidner told People she learned that her mammogram had raised concerns just before traveling to Israel in October.
“Seeing the kind of suffering going on where I was and seeing people still live through the worst thing that has ever happened to them with grace and kindness, I was blown away by their resilience,” she told the outlet. “In some weird way, it helped me with my own perspective on what I am going to be facing.”
According to the American Cancer Society, the average risk of a woman developing breast cancer in her lifetime is approximately 13%, approximately one out of eight.
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I feel bad for her, thoughts and prayers. I’m a grade 3 brain cancer survivor myself going to be 9 years. Unfortunately cancer doesn’t discriminate. Unfortunately cancer does run in my family. My grandmother died in 1966 from breast cancer that metastasized to her bones.