Courage Amidst the Camera, Sara Sidner’s Battle with Stage 3 Breast Cancer

CNN anchor Sara Sidner cautioned live TV viewers in a video posted on X, citing the fact that one in eight women will develop breast cancer.

TV anchor Sara Sidner bravely opened up about her experience with stage 3 breast cancer in an emotional CNN News Central segment. 

Sidner, 51, disclosed that she will have a double mastectomy, and radiation therapy, and is currently in her second month of chemotherapy.

Please for the love of God get your mammograms and do your self exams. I want you to thrive my sisters. 🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷

— Sara Sidner (@sarasidnerCNN) January 8, 2024

She expressed her own shock at receiving a breast cancer diagnosis despite leading a healthy lifestyle and having no family history of the illness.

Sidner’s declaration highlighted the glaring differences in healthcare outcomes, especially for Black women, who have a 40% higher risk of dying from breast cancer than White women. 

Her message was very clear: self-examinations and routine mammograms are essential for early detection.

Sara Sidner of CNN has told innumerable tales of people who, in the face of unimaginable adversity, developed an amazing new outlook on life; however, she did not fully understand what it meant to regard the act of breathing as “enough” until she received her own recent diagnosis of stage 3 breast cancer.

When Sidner left for Israel in October to cover the country’s developing conflict with Hamas, she had recently received word that her mammography had revealed something of concern. 

Sara Sidner’s Personal Quest

She spent three weeks in a war zone with a sense of dread in the back of her mind, knowing that she would require a biopsy upon her return to the United States. 

This experience ultimately prepared her to face whatever personal news awaited her at home.

Within days of her return to New York, a biopsy confirmed what she had feared—that the lump she had first noticed months earlier was cancerous and had already advanced to stage 3. 

Sidner immediately started thinking of the diagnosis as an end-of-life concern, leaping to the worst-case scenario in her mind. 

Sidner went through a few days of feeling helpless before realizing she could not give up just yet because she still had months of treatment ahead of her.

According to Sidner, she no longer wakes up every morning feeling depressed over small life stresses but rather awakens feeling “excited about whatever is coming, because I am here.”

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A post shared by Sara Sidner (@sarasidnertv)

She even made an appearance on the 17th Annual CNN Heroes red carpet on December 10, two days after starting chemotherapy, and hosted a live New Year’s Eve special until two in the morning. 

Sidner is CNN’s senior national correspondent and anchors the morning edition of CNN News Central.

Sidner decided to talk about her illness now before it became too obvious to conceal, even though she still views herself as a private person and has not quite gotten used to talking about her health in public.

Cold capping is a new treatment that Sidner is experimenting with as part of her regimen, lasting roughly five months. She asserts that the changes are still apparent, though.