Breast Cancer Awareness Month has a newfound meaning for Sen. Amy Klobuchar. In September, the Minnesota lawmaker revealed that she had been diagnosed with Stage 1A breast cancer earlier this year, but the good news is that her radiation treatment was successful.

Even though her cancer was caught early, Klobuchar admitted that, like many women, she put off routine examinations because of the pandemic. “At first that made sense because there were a lot of routine things that weren’t going on, but after a while, there was really no excuse except that I kind of just put it off,” she tells Katie in the latest episode of Next Question.  

It’s true, delaying these life-saving screenings has become all too common: more than 50 percent of women skipped their routine mammograms due to concerns over Covid-19. The American Cancer Society still recommends that women who are 45 to 54 years old get screened for breast cancer every year, while women who are 55 and older go for their screening every two years.

But Klobuchar is urging other women not to make the same mistake she did in waiting to get their breast cancer screenings. “I know the feeling of waiting, and I’ve actually talked to women who at the beginning, it made sense to wait, and then they waited some more,” she says. “And then they started thinking, ‘Well, what if someone has Covid if I have to go to the hospital?’ You can’t think like this.” 

Though she first learned the news in February, Klobuchar says she initially kept her diagnosis private because “there was just a lot going on and I didn’t want it to be about me.” At the time, the chairwoman of the Rules and Administration Committee was investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection and was convening hearings on the new voting restrictions imposed by Republican-led state legislatures in Georgia and Texas as well as other parts of the country. She also said wanted to focus on her dad, longtime Minnesota reporter James Klobuchar, who died this past May after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease.

But, looking back, Klobuchar said she had a lot of support during that time. She describes her husband, law professor John Bessler, waking up at 4 a.m. to take her to her radiation treatments. She also credits her team of doctors and even kindness from strangers during that difficult time. 

“There were a lot of nice things and moments,” she recalls. “I remember people helping me out, even when they didn’t know they were doing it.”

Klobuchar hopes that by sharing her story, she will encourage others to be more proactive about their breast cancer screenings. “It’s sharing the information, so it doesn’t happen to other people,” she says. Listen to this episode of Next Question with Katie Couric for more.