CNN’s Sara Sidner has told countless stories of people who, in the face of unthinkable challenges.
Sidner, CNN News Central co-anchor, revealed on Monday she is fighting stage 3 breast cancer.
In an emotional moment on air, Sidner asked her audience to “take a second to recall the names of eight women who you love and know in your life,” adding that one in every eight women fights breast cancer at some point in their lives.
“I am that one in eight in my friend group,” Sidner, 51, continued. “I have never been sick a day in 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.”
Please for the love of God get your mammograms and do your self exams. I want you to thrive my sisters. ??????? pic.twitter.com/jIuW8WwSb2
— Sara Sidner (@sarasidnerCNN) January 8, 2024
Sidner is the co-anchor of CNN News Central alongside John Berman and Kate Bolduan out of the network’s New York City Bureau. She is also a senior national and international correspondent for the channel.
Sidner choked up while sharing the news on Monday. “It is hard to say out loud,” she told viewers, revealing she is currently in her second month of chemotherapy treatment. She will later undergo radiation and a double mastectomy.
She continued her update with a reflection for her audience: “Stage 3 is not a death sentence anymore for the vast majority of women, but here is the reality that really shocked my system when I started to research more about breast cancer, something I never knew before this diagnosis: If you happen to be a Black woman, you are 41 percent more likely to die from breast cancer than your white counterparts,” she said. “To all my sisters, Black and white and brown out there, please, for the love of God, get your mammograms every single year. Do your self-exams. Try to catch it before I did.”
For her own part, Sidner concluded with a message of personal gratitude. “I have thanked cancer for choosing me,” she said. “I’m learning that no matter what the 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. I am happier because I don’t stress about foolish little things that used to annoy me. And now, every single day that I breathe another breath, I can celebrate that I am still here with you.”
