Ananda Lewis, the former host of BET’s Teen Summit, has revealed her two-year struggle with stage 3 breast cancer.
Lewis posted her status to Instagram as part of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
“I’m sharing this with you today because it is the beginning of Breast Cancer Awareness Month and I have been fighting to get cancer out of my body for almost two years,” she said in her Instagram video, adding that she refused to get mammograms after watching her mother faithfully get mammograms for 30 years before getting breast cancer herself.
Even though she believes in research that shows a link between radiation exposure treatments, she said she shouldn’t have refused to get a mammogram once reaching the age of 40.
“What I didn’t understand, and what I need you to understand…is because I would have had three or mammograms before the time they caught it,” she said. “Instead, I’ve had to have 2 PET scans so far. Guess how many mammograms worth of radiation a PET scan is..30! So 60 mammograms! You do the math.”
Lewis is currently using natural and alternative treatments to help her in her fight against cancer. But she said that if the cancerous tumor was caught earlier, it would have been “more manageable.”
“It’s never easy, but I use that word in comparison to what I’m going through now,” she said. “Instead, what I’m dealing with is stage 3 breast cancer that is in my lymphs. I need you to get your mammograms.”
Our thoughts are with Lewis at this time.
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