Danielle Fishel has breast cancer.
The “Boy Meets World” actress, 43, revealed her diagnosis on Monday’s episode of her podcast, “Pod Meets World,” that she hosts with her former co-stars Will Friedle and Rider Strong.
“I would like to share something with our listeners, something that Rider and Will were actually two of the first people I told the news to,” Fishel said.
“I was recently diagnosed with DCIS, which stands for ductal carcinoma in situ, which is a form of breast cancer,” she shared.
“It is very, very, very early,” the actress continued. “It’s technically stage zero. To be specific, I was diagnosed with high-grade DCIS with micro-invasion. And I’m going to be fine. I’m having surgery to remove it. I’m going to be on some follow-up treatment. I’ve had to make a lot of decisions over the last couple of days.”
Fishel explained that she initially wasn’t going to share her diagnosis publicly, but she realized she could help others with her own health story.
“If you’ve ever had those thoughts in your life where someone close to you is diagnosed with cancer, somewhere in your mind you think, ‘What would I do if this were me? What would I do in this situation?’ ” she said.
“And for some reason, I had always thought I would suffer in silence. I would get the diagnosis. I would not tell anyone. I would only tell my small, small group. And then I would just suck it up. And then when I’m on the other side of it, then I would tell people.”
“And as I’ve gotten older, I have really tried to learn from the experiences of others,” Fishel continued. “Because I don’t think I did that enough when I was younger.
The “Gravity Falls” star said she first told her husband Jensen Karp, with whom she shares sons Adler, 5, and Keaton, 3, and the rest of her family that she had breast cancer.
“And then what I realized is the more people I talk to, the more people had their own experiences, either themselves being diagnosed with cancer or a family member who’s been diagnosed with cancer,” she explained, before vouching for getting a mammogram.
“The only reason I caught this cancer when it is still stage zero is because the day I got my text message that my yearly mammogram had come up, I made the appointment. And the fact that I am good about going to my doctor’s appointments, when truthfully, it would be so much easier with as busy as I am, to say, “I don’t have time for that.’
“Instead,” Fishel added, “I was like, ‘Yeah, it’s time. Got to make that appointment.’ And they found it so, so, so early that I’m going to be fine.”
“And so I want to share this because I hope that it will encourage anyone to get in there,” she said. “If it’s time for your appointment, if you’ve never had an appointment before, get in there. If you have to find out that you have cancer, find out when it’s at stage zero, if possible.”
Fishel told her podcast listeners she has “some big decisions” ahead of her regarding her cancer battle.
“I don’t have all the answers yet,” she said. “I still have doctors I need to meet with, oncologists, radiation specialists, hormone therapists, all kinds of stuff that I have still in front of me to decide.”
Both of Fishel’s co-hosts showed her support after she revealed her diagnosis.
“Whatever you need, we’re here,” said Friedle, 48. “And if you need to miss something or if you need to postpone stuff, it’s the last thing you need to worry about.”
