Today show contributor Jill Martin has been diagnosed with breast cancer. The 47-year-old revealed her diagnosis during a Monday morning appearance on the NBC morning show, just a week after she tested positive for the BRCA gene, writing in a Today op-ed that she received her diagnosis at 3:30 p.m. on June 26 and can “remember saying to myself, ‘my life is never going to be the same.’”
Martin, who has a history of breast cancer in her family, said that while she “always feared this day would come,” she “never really thought it would.” According to Martin, her grandmother passed away from breast cancer, and her own mother, who she said is “now healthy,” “had a double mastectomy in her late 40s after being diagnosed with ductal carcinoma in situ, often referred to as stage 0 breast cancer.” While Martin “was vigilant on keeping up with my screenings,” she said she “wrongly thought, like so many other friends I have since spoken to about this, that breast cancer was mostly something only women needed to monitor.”
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“I was wrong. Very,” Martin continued, adding that just three weeks ago, under urgings from her doctors, “had taken an at-home saliva test by a genetic testing company and mailed it in.” After having forgotten about the test, Martin said that “on June 20, I got a call from Dr. Susan Drossman telling me that I was BRCA2 positive... And because of that test, I had a sonogram and an MRI and it turns out…I have breast cancer.”
“I am telling this story now because I couldn’t go through months of operations, and start to recover both physically and mentally, without shouting from the rooftops telling everyone to check with their doctors to see if genetic testing is appropriate,” Martin wrote. “It all happened so fast. It is hard to believe just one month ago I was in Paris celebrating my mother’s 75th birthday. But I have had some time to process, so now I’m in get-it-done robotic mode. Different people cope in different ways; for me, I am not hiding under the covers crying. Instead, I want to do everything I can to beat this and protect my family.”
While Martin said she was “heartbroken” and “devastated” by her diagnosis, she said she is “empowered.” The Today contributor explained that she will undergo the first step of her treatment, a double mastectomy performed by Dr. Elisa Port, chief of breast surgery for the Mount Sinai Health System, this week and will then begin reconstruction. Martin said her “treatment plan will also be informed by the results from my surgery,” adding that “Dr. Karen Brodman has advised that, in a few months, I will also need my ovaries and fallopian tubes taken out as part of the preventative surgery process, as my chances of getting ovarian cancer are now 20% higher… That is not a percentage I am willing to live with.”
Martin wrote that she decided to open up about her battle with cancer “not to scare you, but to raise awareness so that maybe you can be tested and identify a BRCA or other genetic mutation earlier.” She said that if she had “known I was BRCA positive, I would have gotten screened more regularly, with an MRI alternating with my mammograms. What I didn’t know before this experience was that an MRI can pick up cancers that mammograms miss.” She added that she hopes “that by starting this conversation, we can make a difference together.”
Martin said that in the midst of her diagnosis, she is “doing OK,” sharing that she has “a loving husband, amazing family and friends and an incredible support system. I have my head on straight and know exactly what needs to be done. Am I scared? Of course. Who wouldn’t be? But I know cancer has nothing on me.”
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