CNN”s Sara Sidner has announced she has been diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. The 51-year-old Florida native disclosed the news during an appearance on a Monday morning episode of CNN News Central.
“Mentally, it has been 90% good for me because it’s just opened my eyes to how beautiful this life that we have is,” said Sidner, who disclosed her diagnosis Monday morning on CNN News Central. “I love my life now more than I can remember since probably 7 or 8. I really, truly feel grateful just to be here.”
The award-winning journalist was covering the Israel-Hamas war in the Middle East when she was informed that there was an issue with results of her mammogram and would need to have a biopsy performed when she returned to the U.S.
“Seeing the kind of suffering going on where I was and seeing people still live through the worst thing that has ever happened to them with grace and kindness, I was blown away by their resilience,” Sidner told People. “In some weird way, it helped me with my own perspective on what I am going to be facing.”
After undergoing the biopsy, it was confirmed that the lump she found in her breast was indeed cancerous and had progressed to stage 3.
“When I got the news, I didn’t tell anybody, not even my mother or husband or sisters or friends,” she said. “I just needed to process it.”
She immediately began to think the worst, fearful that her life was coming to an end.
“The first thing I thought of was, ‘You better start writing letters to the people you love because you’re not going to be here,'” she said while holding back tears. “So I started writing one to my mom, who was struggling with her own health situation.”
But since then, she remains hopeful that her best days are now ahead.
“I just made a decision. I’m like, ‘No, you’re going to live and you’re going to stop this and you’re going to do every single thing in your arsenal to survive this. Period.’ And I have been so much happier in my life since … I mean happier than I was before cancer.”
