CNN anchor Sara Sidner has been diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer.
“As we end our broadcast today, I have a personal note that I would like to share with you,” the 51-year-old journalist said on “CNN News Central” Monday morning.
She asked viewers to think of eight women they know.
“Statistically, one of them will get or have breast cancer. I am that one in eight in my friend group,” she said. “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. It is hard to say out loud.”
Sidner said she is in her second month of chemotherapy treatment, and that she plans to undergo radiation and a double mastectomy.
“Stage 3 is not a death sentence anymore for the vast majority of women,” she added.
She went on to share a statistic that she said she’d found shocking.
“If you happen to be a Black woman, you are 41% more likely to die from breast cancer than your white counterparts,” she said. ”So to all my sisters, Black and white and brown out there, please, for the love of God, get your mammograms every single year. Do your self-exams. Try to catch it.”
At that point, Sidner choked up as she shared: “I have thanked cancer for choosing me.”
″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 really different for me now,” she said tearfully. “I am 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 am still here with you.”
In an interview with People, Sidner, who also serves as CNN’s senior national correspondent, said she learned that her mammogram had raised cause for concern in October, just before she traveled to Israel to report on its war with Hamas.
She spent three weeks in the war zone before she returned to New York to have a biopsy taken. It confirmed that the lump she had noticed months earlier was cancerous.
Breast cancer is the second most common cancer for women in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The median age at the time of diagnosis is 62, the American Cancer Society reports. Black women are more likely to die from breast cancer than all other women.
Many women who have breast cancer have no symptoms in the early stages, which is why experts urge people to undergo regular screening.