Tom Brady said his mother, Galynn Brady, is feeling much better, two years after she began her fight with breast cancer.
“She’s doing really well,” the 40-year-old New England Patriots quarterback told PEOPLE Sunday. “I think any family that has dealt with cancer realizes the challenge it is not only at that moment, but as it continues to be.”
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Galynn was diagnosed with breast cancer in June 2016, and missed all of Brady’s regular season games the following season. She felt well enough to attend Super Bowl LI though, so she was in the stands when Brady engineered a shocking comeback victory over the Atlanta Falcons in February 2017.
“I think she’s got so much appreciation for the people who have supported her,” Brady said of Galynn, who also attended Super Bowl LII. “She’s such a wonderful woman and she’s been so positive through it all and we’ve been so proud of her.”
Last fall, Galynn told NBC Network’s Andrea Kremer that she went through lumpectomies and five months of chemotherapy after getting the diagnosis. During the 2016 season, Galynn FaceTimed with Brady, who constantly kept in touch with his parents, who live in the Bay Area.
“Losing my hair was hard for me,” Galynn told Kremer. “I’d have my bandanna on and he’d say, ‘Oh, Mom, you look beautiful, you look so beautiful.’”
Brady’s father, Tom Brady Sr., also told Kremer he was sure his mom would be well enough to go to the Super Bowl.
“He wanted to know what was happening,” Brady Sr. said. “He was in touch with us on an extraordinary regular basis. He knew our frustration of not being able to be back there with him and he said, ‘Oh, you’ll be ready for the Super Bowl.’ He told us that in the middle of the season. We did have it charted out that the end of her five months was going to be two weeks before the Super Bowl.”
According to TODAY, the most recent tests show Galynn is now cancer-free.
Although the Patriots lost Super Bowl LII to the Philadelphia Eagles, Brady has been busy promoting his book The TB12 Method and has continued to support cancer causes. He got his hair shaved to raise millions for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at the Saving By Shaving event in Massachusetts. Brady also starred in a documentary about his work regimen, Tom vs. Time, which is available on Facebook.
In one episode, Brady talked about seeing his children cry after the Pats lost in February.
“That was the first time that I had seen my kids really react in that way,” Brady said. “Benny was crying, Vivi was crying, and they were sad for me and sad for the Patriots. But I just said to them, I said, ‘Look, this is a great lesson. We don’t always win. We try our best, and sometimes it doesn’t go the way we want.’”
