Katie Couric Shares Health Update Amid Breast Cancer Diagnosis


Katie Couric.
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Get well-recovered! Katie CouricAfter sharing her breast cancer diagnosis, she shared an update on her health.

“I’m feeling just fine,” the Going ThereAuthor, 65, stated during a Monday, Oct. 3, appearance on the Today show. “I finished radiation last week. It makes you tired, they said. I was actually not too tired from it.”

The former CBS Evening NewsAnchor revealed last week she was diagnosed with breast carcinoma in June after she delayed her mammogram. “I felt sick and the room started to spin,” the TodayIn an essay she posted on her, alumnae recalls their experiences Katie Couric Media website. “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. ‘What does this mean? Will I need a mastopexy? Will I need chemo?’”

The Virginia native underwent a lumpectomy in July to remove the tumor, but she didn’t need chemotherapy because of a low oncotype. She completed radiation treatments last month.

On Monday, Couric reiterated how grateful she is that her doctors caught the cancer so early, despite the fact that she’d delayed having her annual mammogram.

“I just feel super lucky that it was diagnosed when it was, that I went, even though I was late, that I went when I did,” she explained, crediting her radiologist with helping her figure out what to do right away. “I was pretty stunned, and I think those words — ‘it’s cancerous’ or ‘you have cancer’ — do stop you in their tracks, but she told me it was treatable. We needed to have a plan.”

While the veteran TV journalist was nervous given her family’s history of cancer, she was also worried about how her daughters would react to the news. Couric shares Ellie, 31 and Caroline, 26 with Jay Monahan (who died from colon cancer in 1998).

“I told them, but I was very reassuring,” the 60 Minutes alum told Hoda KochAnd Savannah Guthrie. “But I saw on their faces — you know, it’s just hard to deliver that news, no matter how you do it. But I assured them that I was going to be fine.”

Couric revealed that her younger child accompanied her during her lumpectomy. “She was singing ‘The Arms of an Angel.’ She’s so funny,” the former Katie host said. “They’ve been incredibly supportive.”

The University of Virginia graduate also shared that she decided to share her story in the hope that it would inspire others to take exams that were postponed due to the coronavirus epidemic. “I think people should go [for mammograms] every year,” Couric said. “I think women have to advocate for their own health.”