Ananda Lewis shared an emotional Instagram post on Thursday (October 1) revealing that she’s been battling breast cancer.
“I am sharing this with you today because it’s the beginning of breast cancer awareness month and I’ve been fighting to get cancer out of my body for almost two years. For a really long time I have refused mammograms … and that was a mistake.”
Lewis, a legendary VJ at MTV throughout the 90s and early 00s, shared that she wanted her mom get mammograms and determined she was passing on them due to her belief that constant exposure to radiation gave you cancer.
“What I didn’t understand, what I need you to understand, the reason I’m telling you my business … I would have had probably three or four mammograms before they caught it,” she said. “Instead, I’ve had two PET scans so far. Guess how many mammograms worth of radiation a PET scan is. Anyone? Thirty! Thirty! So sixty mammograms. You do the math. If I had done the mammograms from the time they were recommended when I turned 40, they would have caught the tumor in my breast years before I caught it through my own breast exam.”
Lewis originally began her television career as an on-screen host of BET’s Teen Summit before moving to MTV in 1996, hosting Total Request Live and becoming a fixture for many a kid of the ’90s who grew up watching her on TV.
Prayers up!