Jenna Fischer shared an Instagram post on 8 October this year that read: “October is breast cancer awareness month. I never thought I’d be making an announcement like this but here we are.”
“Last December, I was diagnosed with Stage 1 Triple Positive Breast Cancer. After completing surgery, chemotherapy and radiation I am now cancer free.”
Speaking to the TODAY show, the actor ― who co-hosts a The Office behind-the-scenes podcast Office Ladies with another of the series’ stars, Angela Kinsey ― said her recording buddy was seriously supportive during the trying time.
“From the beginning, she said, ‘Whatever you need you tell me I’m here.’ And I said I want to keep working and I don’t want anyone to know at work,” Jenna revealed.
“I need that,” she added, sharing that one of Angela’s small gestures helped to make the journey a little easier.
“I want that to be a space where we go and we laugh and I’m not a cancer patient,” she told Angela of their workspace.
“When I started to lose my hair, I would wear my hats with my hair coming out. We called them ‘wighats’,” Jenna continued.
“And [Angela] started wearing hats to work so that I wouldn’t be the only person in a work meeting wearing a hat.”
“You know what that is? That’s love,” the interviewer said, to which Jenna responded, “It was amazing.”
Even the Instagram post the actor shared announcing the news shouted Angela out: “A big thank you to Angela Kinsey’s husband Josh Snyder for taking this photo. It’s just one example of the care they showed me during this journey,” it reads.
Later in the TODAY interview, The Office’s star urged women to get any “annoying” to schedule mammograms offered.
“Please don’t skip your mammogram appointment. Please get all the extra screenings that the doctor wants you to get,” she said.
“If I had waited six more months, it could have been much worse. It could have spread. It was a very aggressive form of cancer,” she added.
“It really was that routine mammogram that started all of this. And I’m so grateful that I went to that appointment.”