Katie Couric took to social media early Wednesday to reveal her breast cancer diagnosis.
“Every two minutes, a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer in the United States. On June 21st, I became one of them,” her caption read on Instagram. “As we approach #BreastCancerAwarenessMonth, I wanted to share my personal story with you all and encourage you to get screened and understand that you may fall into a category of women who needs more than a mammogram.”
The former CBS Evening News anchor penned an essay on her website where she said her diagnosis came on her eighth wedding anniversary.
“I felt sick, and the room started to spin,” she explained when she received the news from her doctor. “I was in the middle of an open office, so I walked to a corner and spoke quietly, my mouth unable to keep up with the questions swirling in my head.”
“The heart-stopping, suspended animation feeling I remember all too well came flooding back: Jay’s colon cancer diagnosis at 41 and the terrifying, gutting nine months that followed,” she continued to write. “My sister Emily’s pancreatic cancer, which would later kill her at 54, just as her political career was really taking off. My mother-in-law Carol’s ovarian cancer, which she was fighting as she buried her son, a year and nine months before she herself was laid to rest.”
In 1998, Couric lost her first husband, Jay Monahan, to colon cancer. She shared her journey with her Today Show audience. To raise awareness, she even received a colonoscopy live on-air.
Couric had surgery in July to remove a tumor that was “2.5 centimeters, roughly the size of an olive.” Her stage was 1A, and she learned her “Oncotype — which measures the likelihood of your cancer returning — was 19, considered low enough to forgo chemotherapy.”
She began radiation Sept. 7 and finished her final round on Sept. 27.
“Please get your annual mammogram,” Couric wrote. “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.”