Netflix Star Clea Shearer Thanks Hoda Kotb For Breast Cancer Advice
- Clea Shearer, 40, co-creator of 'The Home Edit' and Netflix’s “Get Organized with the Home Edit,” credits TODAY show co-anchor Hoda Kotb for giving her some heartfelt advice.
- Kotb told Shearer, “You need to slow down, and this might be the way the universe is kind of forcing you to slow down a little bit.”
- Shearer went public with her breast cancer diagnosis with a selfie posted on Istagram in April.
- Kotb, 58, received her own breast cancer diagnosis in February 2007.
“This has been a time of learning how to be patient, of learning how to not be in control of things, of learning how to just be a little more quiet, to find some solace and peace and calm and not just have to be go, go, go,” she said.
Kotb, 58, speaks from experience after receiving her own breast cancer diagnosis in February 2007.
Doctors discovered lumps in her breast tissue during a routine exam. She was 43 at the time and underwent a mastectomy and reconstruction followed by five years of taking the drug tamoxifen (Nolvadex).
"Cancer shaped me, but it did not define me. It's part of me, but not all of me," Kotb said at an annual Breast Cancer Research Foundation New York Symposium and Awards Luncheon in 2017.
She's still cancer-free today.
Shearer’s Breast Cancer Diagnosis
Shearer went public with her breast cancer diagnosis with a selfie posted on Istagram in April.
View this post on Instagram
"I have breast cancer," she wrote in the post. "It's a hard thing to say, but it's easier than keeping it to myself. I'm having a double mastectomy tomorrow (prayers are welcome!), and I wanted to say a few words before I do.”
"I found a lump myself the last week of February," she continued. "I had been trying to make an appt with my OB for several months, and even when I told them I found a lump, they couldn't accommodate me. I had to request a mammogram from my general doctor, which led to an ultrasound, and then an emergency triple biopsy.
Turns out Shearer's cancer diagnosis was a roller coaster of news.
"I have two tumors, 1 cm each, that are aggressive and fast moving but I caught it early. Had I not taken this upon myself, I would be in a completely different situation right now."
Shearer, who's been sharing regular updates about her health on Instagram, was originally told her cancer was stage 1, but during the nine-hour surgery on Friday, April 8, doctors found cancer in one of her lymph nodes, which elevated the cancer to stage 2.
She needed chemotherapy and radiation as treatments, after her surgeries.
Breast Cancer Chemotherapy
There are quite a few side effects that come along with chemotherapy treatment; one of the most common, and dreaded, is hair loss. Other side effects of chemotherapy can include nausea, constipation and neuropathy.
"It's one of the things that people can see from the outside that people may know that you are ill," Vivian Ruszkiewicz, a nurse practitioner with OhioHealth, a not-for-profit system of hospitals and health care providers in Columbus, Ohio, previously told SurvivorNet, "and that poses a lot of stress for patients."
There are a large number of chemotherapy treatments that cause hair loss, but not all of them, she added. Others cause hair thinning. (If you’re concerned about your hair, talk to your doctor or nurse practitioner about what to expect from your chemotherapy treatment.)
Ruszkiewicz said that some people who only experience partial hair loss still choose to wear a wig, like many people who lose their hair completely, before chemotherapy so that they’re prepared and "can feel more like themselves during chemotherapy."
Then there are others, like Clea Shearer, who choose to embrace their hair loss and shave their head before the balding even begins.
She added that hair loss begins about three to four weeks after your first chemotherapy treatment; you could start to see some hair regrowth about four to six weeks after your last treatment.
Shearer lives in Tennessee with her husband and their two children, Stella, 11, and Sutton, 7.
She co-founded The Home Edit with her best friend and business partner, Joanna, and it became such a success that Netflix opted to make a television show of it.
Netflix released the second season of Get Organized with the Home Edit on April 1, shortly before Clea received her cancer diagnosis.
Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.
