Danielle Fishel, most well known for her role as Topanga on the classic 90’s sitcom, “Boy Meets World,” announced that she’s been diagnosed with breast cancer. Fishel is only 43-years-old. Man, this news hits hard for those of us who were young teenagers when the show initially aired as it was a huge part of our adolescence. I don’t know many teen boys from that era who didn’t crush on Fishel as Topanga.
The announcement was made during the most recent episode of the “Pod Meets World” podcast she hosts alongside fellow “Boy Meets World” 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,” she stated before going on to say, “I was recently diagnosed with DCIS, which stands for ductal carcinoma in situ, which is a form of breast cancer.”
The actress added, “It is very, very, very early. 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.”
Well, coming from a big fan of Fishel and her work on the series, this is welcome news given the horror that could have come from such a diagnosis. Part of the lesson to learn here is to keep up on any sort of annual physicals and check-ups for these kind of illnesses as you age. Finding it early can result in successful treatment and prolonging length of life.
“It would be so much easier with as busy as I am, with the 50 jobs I have and the two kids and the husband and the house, to say, ‘I don’t have time for that. I went to my mammogram last year, I was fine last year, I don’t need to go again this year,'” Fishel said, according to Fox News.
She said she always thought that if she ever got cancer, she would “suffer in silence,” only telling those closest to her and waiting until she had beaten it to say anything publicly. She said that allows a person to share “the pretty picture of it all,” but she later realized, “the place you have the most to learn from is at the very beginning of a story or in the very messy middle of the story.”
Fishel said that it was only after speaking to close friends and family members that she began to realize how many people have been affected by cancer.
“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,” she went on to explain during the episode. “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, with the 50 jobs I have and the two kids and the husband and the house, to say, ‘I don’t have time for that. I went to my mammogram last year, I was fine last year, I don’t need to go again this year.'”
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“Instead, 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,” she added.
Fishel stated that her hope in sharing her story with the public is that more people will be encouraged to set their appointments for check-ups and to get routine screenings for various kinds of cancer, because doing so increases the chance of surviving.
While repeating that she’s going to be okay, she did reveal during the episode that she still has some pretty big decisions to make concerning her treatment.
“I don’t have all the answers yet,” she explained. “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.”
Please pray for Fishel, her co-hosts, and other friends and family as she moves forward with her cancer treatment.