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10th January 2024
10:47am GMT
A news reader choked up on air after she revealed that she had been diagnosed with stage three breast cancer.
Sara Sidner, 51, delivered the announcement on her CNN news broadcast in which she focused on the importance of women staying on top of their yearly mammogram exams.
She said: "Just take a second to recall the names of eight women who you love and know in your life. Just count them on your fingers.
"Statistically, one of them will get or have breast cancer. I am that one of eight in my friend group."
Sidner revealed that she was in the second month of chemotherapy and also plans to have a double mastectomy.
The journalist added that although the diagnosis isn't a "death sentence" for the majority of women, she was left "shocked" after discovering a specific statistic.
"If you happen to be a Black woman, you are 41 percent more likely to die from breast cancer than your White counterparts. Forty-one percent," she explained.
According to the Susan G. Komen Foundation website, black women "tend to be diagnosed with breast cancer at a younger age than white women."
"When I got the news, I didn't tell anybody, not even my mother or husband or sisters or friends. I just needed to process it," she added.
"I have never been sick a day of my life. I don't smoke. I rarely drink. 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.
"Now, here's something I could never, ever have predicted would happen to me: I have thanked cancer for choosing me,' Sidner said.
"I'm learning that no matter what hell we go through in life, I am still madly in love with this life. And just being alive feels really different for me now."
Before signing off, Sidner said she no longer stressed about the "foolish little things" that used to irk her.
"I am here with my co-anchors, my colleagues, my family and I can love and cry and laugh and hope and that, my dear friends, is enough."
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