When Hoda Kotb found out she had breast cancer in early 2007, she considered keeping the diagnosis private.
The TODAY co-anchor was 43 at the time. She worried people would look at her with pity and had a hard time accepting the news herself. As a journalist, taking her personal life public was a tough thing to do, she noted.
“I wasn’t going to say anything about it and I wanted to forget about it, but someone encouraged me to say something,” Hoda recalled in March.
In October 2007, Hoda revealed her diagnosis on TODAY. The response was overwhelming, with women hugging her on the street and some telling her she inspired them to get their first mammogram.
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Since then, Hoda has opened up about seeing her mastectomy scars, the impact on her self-image and how the disease affected her fertility. She’s also shared the positive changes she’s made and noticed as a survivor.
Here is some of Hoda’s most powerful advice about dealing with breast cancer:
‘I became fearless’
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Sometimes, the scariest thing in the world — like cancer — becomes the thing that makes you fearless, Hoda said.
Around the time she found out she was ill, TODAY was adding the fourth hour to its lineup. Hoda decided to approach to the “head honcho” to pitch herself as a co-host — something she would have been reluctant to do before her diagnosis. But knowing her life could be cut short made her “wildly fearless.”
She got the job.
“I thought, ‘Oh my God, if I hadn’t gotten sick, I wouldn’t have been brave and if I wasn’t going to be brave, I wouldn’t be there and I wouldn’t be here,’” she recalled.
‘You can’t scare me’
Asking for the job and getting it gave Hoda an epiphany about work and everything else in life: Most fears were small compared to cancer.
Four words became her mantra: "You can’t scare me."
"Because the worst had happened. So now what? Now what am I afraid of?” she recalled. "Not being afraid released me. It made me free.”
Another mantra: "Go forward."
“You never know what’s ahead of you if you don’t push yourself a little,” she said.
If you could take a pill and be completely brave, what would you do right now that you’re scared of? That’s what the diagnosis gives you, Hoda explained.
‘Your life is about to get a whole lot better’
There’s life before cancer and life after.
“I am here to tell you your second life is going to be so much better than the first,” Hoda wrote a year after her diagnosis.
“A funny thing happened as my body started to heal — my mind did as well. The world just suddenly snapped into focus. Everything that was important became totally clear, and so did the negative parts of my life that I needed to let go of.”
Hoda described her life after cancer as “more honest and fuller” than her life before.
"Small things don’t matter as much, because you get rid of the people in your life who are hurting you, because you hold on tight to those who help you," she said.
‘Share your journey with others’
A chance encounter with a man on a flight in 2007 had a huge impact on Hoda. She was in the midst of treatment and just wanted to go to sleep, but he struck up a conversation.
They began to talk about her cancer.
“He said, 'Breast cancer is part of you,’’ Hoda recalled. “He said, 'It’s like going to college or getting married or working at NBC.' I will never forget what he said.”
“Don’t hog your journey,’’ that fellow passenger, Ken Duane, recalled telling her. “Share your journey with others, and you’re a power of example. Think of what you are able to accomplish.”
Hoda said that statement changed her life and made her realize she could help other women.
‘See your scars as: The cancer is gone’
Hoda said she was “horrified” after first seeing the scars from her eight-hour surgery, which included a mastectomy and reconstruction.
But she felt better when she met another woman who’d had the same surgery and similar scars. It helped her realize they’re a reminder the cancer is gone.
“When your body heals, you start to feel better. You realize that you don’t care about the scars. You are just happy to have this body, a healthy body,” she wrote.
Whenever you’re worried about how you look, take the focus off yourself, Hoda added.
“The best way to not let your post-cancer looks affect how you feel is by taking the spotlight off yourself. When I feel crummy about how I look or whatever I am going through, I remind myself there is always someone else going through a more difficult time.”
‘Cancer shaped me, but it did not define me’
“It’s part of me, but not all of me,” Hoda said.
“If you survive breast cancer, it could be the best thing that happened to you because suddenly you are empowered; because you have strength now; because you realize that your life has margins — it’s to be valued and not wasted.”
Seventeen years after her diagnosis, she continues to inspire other women.
This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:
