Child Meets the World star Danielle Fishel revealed Pod Meets World The 43-year-old actress revealed that she was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer on the Rewatch podcast, which she hosts with former co-stars Rider Strong and Will Friedle. Although she initially considered keeping her diagnosis to herself, she said she ultimately decided to share it in a public forum in the hope that her story would impact others.
“So I want to share with our listeners, Rider and Will were two of the first people I told the news to,” Fishel said at the beginning of Monday's new episode. “I was recently diagnosed with DCIS, which is ductal carcinoma in situ, which is a type of breast cancer. It's very, very, very early. Technically stage zero. To be specific, because I always like a lot of information, I was diagnosed with microinvasive high-grade DCIS.”
“And I'm going to be fine. I'm going to have surgery and get it out,” he assured his audience. “I'm going to have some follow-up treatments. I've had to make a lot of decisions over the last few days.”
DCIS refers to an early form of breast cancer in which cancer cells are confined to a milk duct in the breast but have not yet spread to breast tissue. The Mayo Clinic states that the risk of spreading or becoming life-threatening is low but requires evaluation and treatment.
Fishel said she decided to share her diagnosis in the hope that someone else might wonder what to do in a similar situation. She also said she hopes others can learn from her journey and be inspired by cancer screening themselves.
“The only reason I had this cancer when it was still stage zero was because I made the appointment the day I got the text that my annual mammogram was coming back,” Fishel continued. “And it would have been a lot easier if I had been good at going to my doctor's appointments, no matter how busy I was, to say, 'I don't have time for this. I went to my mammogram last year, I was fine last year, I don't need to go again this year.'”
“And I didn't. Instead, I said, 'It's time, I've got to make that appointment.'” Food the presenter emphasized. “And they found it so early that I'm going to be okay. And I want to share that because I hope it encourages everyone to get in there.”
If you have to find out you have cancer, it's best to find out at stage zero, if possible, Fishel said.
“And I have some big decisions ahead of me about what I want to do for treatment. I don't have all the answers yet — there are still doctors I need to see, oncologists, radiation specialists, hormone therapists,” she concluded. “But I wanted to let our dear listeners know because we're going to try to make sure this doesn't affect things, but we may need to postpone some things depending on what treatments I go through.”
Strong and Friedle also said that cancer screenings aren't just for breast cancer, and that it's important for men to get prostate exams and colonoscopies, too. So for anyone who's been putting off their own cancer screenings, consider reminding them now.