“Cancer has knocked me down,” she said. “I am choosing to get up. I am choosing to fight.”
TODAY Show contributor Jill Martin returned to the show this week to share an update about her recent battle with breast cancer.
The journalist was diagnosed just six weeks ago with stage 2 breast cancer and has since undergone a double mastectomy. Martin sat down with her colleagues to talk about this daunting experience on the air.
“I feel physically great,” she said Monday morning. “But I think emotionally, it’s just earth-shattering, not only for me but for my family. It’s a really disruptive disease.”
Although Martin’s mother and grandmother both had breast cancer, the lifestyle contributor didn’t expect that she’d have the same fate, she wrote in a personal essay last month. Her mother had tested negative for BRCA mutations — gene mutations associated with higher rates of breast, ovarian, and other cancers — and she was diligent about regularly getting her mammograms, which had always come back clean.
Still, her doctors recommended she take a genetic test; it came back positive. She’d inherited a BRCA2 mutation from her father’s side. Because of that, she had an MRI and sonogram, which revealed an “aggressive tumor.” She had it removed successfully, Martin said, and her oncologist thinks there’s a good chance she’s now cancer-free. But she said she’ll “most likely need chemotherapy,” a preventative surgery to remove her ovaries and fallopian tubes, and will be placed on an anti-hormonal drug for five years.
“Breast cancer treatment is often not a sprint, it’s a little more like a marathon,” Martin’s surgeon Elisa Port, M.D., said. “But there is a beginning, middle, and an end, and she’s gone through a huge hurdle with the surgery and done beautifully.”
Martin hopes that by sharing her journey in “real-time” she can encourage others to be proactive and get tested if appropriate.
“Many dear friends, viewers, and family have said, ‘I am afraid to have any kind of genetic testing, as I am afraid of what I will find out.’ I totally understand that sentiment and reasoning. But let me be very clear: Any preventative measures you can take, although not easy, are easier than battling cancer. This entire process is life-changing, but adding cancer to the mix is a different kind of battle — one I do not wish on anyone.”
Martin also wrote that she’s still grappling with the thought of having to undergo chemotherapy.
“Cancer has knocked me down,” she wrote. “I am choosing to get up. I am choosing to fight.” She said Monday that she’ll be back on the air with her “steals and deals” segment this week.
“I could either stay home and cry under the covers or I could come to work and be myself,” Martin said during the broadcast. “I’m not going to let cancer take that away from me.”
