Cousins!
Please join us in sending our deepest prayers along with love and light to former Bet and MTV host Ananda Lewis as she recently revealed her battle with stage three breast cancer!
The television host and personality took to social media recently to announce October being the official month of breast cancer awareness while also urging women to take notice of the importance of Mammogram testing.
“For a really long time, I have refused mammograms, and that was a mistake,” Ananda,47 states.
“I watched my mom get mammograms for almost 30 years almost, and at the end of that, she had breast cancer, and I said, ‘Huh. Radiation exposure for years equals breast cancer. Yeah, I’m going to pass. Thanks anyway.”
Lewis notes that though she believes too much radiation is a direct cause of cancer, she wants all women to know that they must have their breast checked often. She states that mammograms serve as a power tool and the earlier the cancer is detected the better.
According to Essence ,Ananda revealed that because she waited such a long time she had to undergo two Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scans done, which subjected her body to more radiation.
“If I had done the mammograms from the time they were recommended, when I turned 40, they would have caught the tumor in my breast years before I caught it through my own breast exam—self exam—and thermography,” Lewis said. “And they would have caught it at a place where it was more manageable. Where the treatment of it would have been a little easier. It’s never easier, but I use that word in comparison to what I’m going through now. Instead, what I’m dealing with is stage 3 breast cancer that is in my lymphs. I need you to get your mammograms.”
Ananda apologized to her family and friends for speaking publicly about her diagnosis but she felt she had to use her platform to help others.