Giuliana Rancic Shares the One Thing All Women Should Do to Protect Themselves From Breast Cancer
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Giuliana Rancic celebrated her 12-year cancer-free anniversary last week by going to her first college football bowl game. And not just any bowl game: it was the Avocados From Mexico Cure Bowl, a game dedicated to raising funds for breast cancer research — a cause to which Rancic, a breast cancer survivor, has dedicated herself for over a decade now.
“When they told me what the Cure Bowl was all about, I was like, ‘Absolutely. I will be there,” the E! News anchor tells SheKnows ahead of the game in Orlando, Florida last week. “I’m so excited.”
More from SheKnows
Rancic was especially eager to attend the Super Good Rally, held at the stadium before the game, where she and other survivors and supporters created signs for people going through breast cancer. “Just letting them know that we’re rallying for them, that we love them, we support them,” Rancic explained, “because that’s a really big part of the journey. When you’re going through breast cancer, getting those words of encouragement, especially from other survivors, is really meaningful.”
It certainly made a difference for Rancic. After she went public with her diagnosis in 2011, Rancic remembers being astonished at the outpouring of love and support she received. “To see the messages coming in from all over the world on social media … people would use the word ‘strong’ over and over again,” she recalls. “‘Stay strong, you’re strong, be strong.’ And when you see something enough, you believe it.”
It was encouragement Rancic needed while undergoing treatment, which included a double mastectomy. Even 12 years later, the memories of that time are still vivid; Rancic says she recently got emotional while watching an old episode of her reality show, Giuliana & Bill, that took place around the time of her diagnosis. “I couldn’t get through the first probably eight minutes of it,” she says. “Tears just started coming down… Even just talking about it now gets me choked up because it was such a hard thing to go through.”
One thing Rancic hopes others can learn from her experience is that breast cancer can affect anyone at any time. “A lot of young women think that, ‘OK, I’ll just wait till I’m 40 to get my mammogram because what can I do now at a young age?'” Rancic, who was diagnosed at age 36, has the answer.
“The biggest thing you can do is those self-exams every month,” she says. “Just getting to know your body is so important.” As a breast cancer advocate, Rancic says she’s met more people who have found a lump on their own, through a self-exam, than through a mammogram. And early detection is huge. People who find their breast cancer early, before it’s spread, have a 99 percent five-year survival rate, according to the American Cancer Society. It drops to 86 percent when the cancer has spread into nearby areas of the body, and down to 30 percent when it’s spread to distant parts of the body.
“The biggest key is early detection and getting to know your body early,” Rancic says. “If you do feel something that’s different, you’re gonna be the first to know.”
Before you go, check out these essential products for breast cancer patients and survivors:
Best of SheKnows
Sign up for SheKnows' Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
