Former “Boy Meets World” star Danielle Fishel shared that she was diagnosed with breast cancer and reminded women to get regular checkups that can detect the disease early.
Fishel, 43, said on the Aug. 19 episode of her iHeartRadio podcast “Pod Meets World” that she has been diagnosed with DCIS, which stands for ductal carcinoma in situ, a form of breast cancer.
“It’s very, very, very early,” he said. “Technically, we’re at stage 0.”
He added that his official diagnosis is high-grade DCIS with microinvasion.
“I’m going to be fine,” he said. “I’m going to have surgery to remove it and I’m going to continue with the treatment.”
About one in five new breast cancers are DCIS, which has a 98% survival rate after 10 years, usually after the tumor is removed, according to the American Cancer Society.
The mother of two had a specific reason for sharing her diagnosis publicly.
“The only reason I caught this cancer when it was still stage 0 was because the day I got the text saying I needed to get my annual mammogram, I made the appointment,” she said.
“They caught it so, so, so early that I’m going to be fine,” she continued. “So I want to share this because I hope it encourages anyone to go there. If it’s time for your appointment, if you’ve never had an appointment before, go there. If you have to find out you have cancer, find out when you’re at stage 0, if possible.”
In April, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended that women at average risk for breast cancer get a mammogram every two years starting at age 40 instead of every 50. However, some doctors believe mammograms should be done annually for women in their 40s, rather than every two years.
“Aggressive breast cancers can go undetected because they grow so quickly,” Dr. Elisa Port, chief of breast surgery at Mount Sinai Health System in New York and director of the Dubin Breast Center, told TODAY.com.
Data from the National Cancer Institute show that the number of invasive breast cancer diagnoses among women in their 40s has increased by 2% each year since about 2016.
Fishel, who played Topanga Lawrence on “Boy Meets World” from 1993 to 2000, struggled with the decision to share her diagnosis outside a close circle of family and friends.
“The only reason I’m sharing this is because if you’ve ever had those thoughts in your life where someone close to you is diagnosed with cancer, somewhere in the back of your mind you’re thinking, ‘What would I do if it were me? What would I do in this situation?’” she said.
“And for some reason I always thought I would suffer in silence. I wouldn’t tell anybody. I would tell just my little, tiny group and then I would accept it and when I was on the other side, I would tell people.”
Author Glennon Doyle’s writings inspired Fishel to talk openly about her breast cancer early on, rather than just thinking about “the pretty picture of it all” after finishing treatment.
“The place where you can learn the most is at the beginning of a story, or in the messy middle of it,” Fishel said.
He is currently meeting with a number of specialists to formulate a treatment plan.
“I have some big decisions to make about what treatment I want to pursue,” she said. “I don’t have all the answers yet.”
Fishel said there is also a “possibility that we may have to postpone some things” regarding her appearances on the podcast and her work as an actress, director and entrepreneur.
This article was originally published on TODAY.com
