CNN anchor Sara Sidner shared on Monday that she is currently undergoing treatment for stage 3 breast cancer.
Sidner, 51, announced her diagnosis during an emotional segment of “CNN News Central,” which she co-hosts. Sidner told viewers she is in her second month of chemotherapy and will undergo radiation and a double mastectomy.
“I have never been sick a day of my life. I don’t smoke, I rarely drink,” Sidner said. “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 was optimistic about treatment, saying stage 3 breast cancer “is not a death sentence anymore for most women.”
The anchor was in Israel in October covering the Israel-Hamas war when doctors told her she would need a biopsy upon her return to the U.S. after a mammogram raised concerns, People magazine reported in an exclusive interview with the anchor.
Photo by Cindy Ord/Getty Images for CNN
“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,” Sidner told People. “In some weird way, it helped me with my own perspective on what I am going to be facing.”
Sidner also used her on-air announcement to remind women, particularly Black women, who are 40 percent more likely than White women to die from breast cancer, to get tested regularly.
“So to all my sisters, Black and White and Brown out there, please, for the love of God, get your mammograms every single year,” she said. “Do your self-exams, try to catch it before I did.”
Sidner said she is unexpectedly grateful for the diagnosis because of the way it shifted her perspective on life.
“I have thanked cancer for choosing me,” she said, holding back tears. “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.”
