Danielle Fishel shared a shocking health update with fans on Sunday.
“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 said. “I was recently diagnosed with DCIS, which stands for ‘ductal carcinoma in situ,’ which is a form of breast cancer.”
Fishel then detailed the specifics of her diagnosis, reassuring her listeners that she would be fine.
“It is very, very, very early, it’s technically stage zero,” she said. “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.”
The “Pod Meets World” co-host explained her original plan to “suffer in silence” if she was ever diagnosed with cancer and share the news publicly after she overcame the disease.
“I’ve had to make a lot of decisions over the last couple of days,” she said. “The only reason I’m sharing it is because if you’ve ever had those thoughts in your life where someone close to you is diagnosed with cancer, somewhere in your mind, you think, ‘What would I do if this were me? What would I do in this situation?’
A Learning Lesson
However, Fishel chose to reveal her cancer diagnosis after learning from author Glennon Doyle, who she says talks about how people often withhold sharing about their experiences until the end, when they can give “the pretty picture of it all” instead of at the beginning or “very messy middle” of the journey.Fishel said she gained a valuable learning opportunity by being open about her diagnosis early on.
“What I realized is, the more people I talk to, the more people had their own experiences, either themselves being diagnosed with cancer or a family member who’s been diagnosed with cancer,” she said, noting the “world of resources and experiences that can be shared.”
The “Girl Meets World” star said that the sole reason she detected the cancer early was because she made an appointment for a yearly mammogram checkup after receiving a reminder, despite her busy schedule.
“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,’” she said.
“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.”
Fishel encouraged her listeners to take initiative over their health.
“I want to share this because I hope that it will encourage anyone to get in there. If it’s time for your appointment, if you’ve never had an appointment before, get in there,” she said.
“If you have to find out that you have cancer, find out when it’s at stage zero if possible.
“I don’t have all the answers yet. 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.”
Fishel got her big break in 1993 as Topanga Lawrence-Matthews on the ABC coming-of-age sitcom “Boy Meets World” until the show ended in 2000. During her time on the series, Fishel appeared on the December 1998 “Seventeen” magazine cover and earned a Young Star for Best Performance by a Young Actress in a Comedy TV Series.
Fishel went on to appear in several films, such as “National Lampoon Presents Dorm Daze” (2003), “Gamebox 1.0” (2004), and “Boiling Pot” (2015). She also hosted the pop-culture show “The Dish” from 2008 to 2011.
Two decades after her debut on “Boy Meets World,” Fishel reprised her role as Topanga Lawrence-Matthews on the spin-off series “Girl Meets World,” appearing with “Boy Meets World” co-star and love interest Cory Matthews, played by Ben Savage. The series ended in 2017.
