Journalist Katie Couric Reveals Shocking Breast Cancer Diagnosis After Missing Mammogram Screening
Sept. 28 2022, Published 9:45 a.m. ET
Veteran journalist Katie Couric recently revealed she was diagnosed with breast cancer over the summer, RadarOnline.com can confirm.
The shocking announcement came on Wednesday after the 65-year-old journalist took to her daily newsletter, Wake Up Call, to reveal her diagnosis.
According to Couric, she was first informed she had breast cancer on June 21 – one day after visiting her breast radiologist for a mammogram.
“June 21, 2022, was the first day of summer, my 8th wedding anniversary, and the day I found out I had breast cancer,” Couric wrote Wednesday morning in a post titled “Why Not Me.”
“I felt sick and the room started to spin,” Couric continued. “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.”
Couric also revealed that, prior to her mammogram on June 20, her last screening was in December 2020 – nearly 2 years prior.
The former ABC News correspondent and Katie talk show host also revealed how her breast cancer diagnosis immediately brought back memories of the past cancer diagnoses of her closest family members – including her late husband, Jay Monahan, her current husband, John Molner, as well as her parents and sister.
“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 sadly wrote. “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,” she continued, “which she was fighting as she buried her son, a year and nine months before she herself was laid to rest.”
Couric’s own mother was diagnosed with “mantle cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma” which the family was able to “keep at bay for a decade,” while her father still suffers from pancreatic cancer.
Her current husband was also diagnosed with “a tumor the size of a coconut on his liver" eight years ago, although surgeons were successfully able to remove the tumor before it spread and became terminal.
Luckily for Couric, surgeons were successfully able to remove the tumors on her breast – which she described as “2.5 centimeters, roughly the size of an olive” – on July.
The journalist also continued to undergo radiation treatment, which ended on Tuesday, one day before Couric felt confident enough to reveal her cancer diagnosis to the world.
But although Couric’s breast cancer has since been treated, she used her own harrowing experience to emphasize the importance of undergoing regular checkups and screenings to catch potential cancers before it is too late.
“Please get your annual mammogram. I was six months late this time,” Couric warned. “I shudder to think what might have happened if I had put it off longer.”