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Hoda’s Soothing Message
After breast cancer diagnosis, Clea Shearer shares how Hoda Kotb’s encouraging words helped her a lot during the first days of her cancer journey.
On Sept. 23, the Get Organized with The Home Edit star participating in the Today show with host Savannah Guthrie explained her major health struggle-confessionary new memoir, Cancer Is Complicated, and a long and winding cancer journey.
Clea’s Cancer Journey
Invasion of stage 2 mammary carcinoma was the diagnosis that was given to Clea Shearer, 43, in March 2022. The chemo, radiation and six surgeries (including the double mastectomy and removal of her ovaries) were endured by her during the next couple of months.
By the time it was November 2022, the star of the show Get Organized with The Home Edit was entirely healthy. Breast reconstruction surgery that was her next step on the road to recovery took place two years after the cancer was diagnosed.
Setbacks and Strength
In November 2024, Clea was very happy as she thought she was going to have her seventh surgery and that it would be her last one. Yet, in just two months, January came with the news that the wound at her incision site had opened up to her breast implant so that she would have to undergo more surgeries this year.
Notwithstanding, Clea is still committed to the overall vision. To Savannah Guthrie, she said, “I am still recovering but I am healthy,” and later she stressed, “I am cancer-free and that is the only thing that counts.”
Hoda’s Words of Wisdom
Clea revealed that the support she got from various places was Hoda Kotb’s voice, breast cancer survivor, and thus, one of the main influences which helped her get through.
After the discovery of a lump eighteen years ago, Kotb, 61, was diagnosed with breast cancer and later had a mastectomy and reconstructive surgery in March 2007. Since then, she has been free of cancer and it was her words of encouragement that Clea said helped her to navigate her own path.
“We’re Still Here”
“One of the first people I told my diagnosis was Hoda,” Clea said on Today. “She was so wonderful, she held my hand really tight and she says to me, ‘Look, I know a lot of people who have been through breast cancer and the one thing we’re all saying is that we’re still here.’ I was like, Hoda! So I’m going to get through it.”
According to Clea, those words turned into her battle chant that she used as a reference during her fight – a call for endurance, strength, and faith.
Rebuilding, Inside and Out
Clea Wofford Yale came out with it and told PEOPLE about her breast reconstruction,’ “in the meantime, hard work and unfortunate situations,” the breast implant being the “last shot” for a successful implantation, and the acknowledgment that some people might think why she would want to go through so much pain just to have her breasts recreated.
“I have basically been living with breasts of questionable health for the last three years. At this moment, I do not aim to compete in any swimsuit contest,” she said. “However, there is really a necessity for me to reconstruct my body. It’s more of an emotional need than a physical one.”
Strength for the Future
Looking back at her path, Clea admitted to PEOPLE that her cancer has changed her life in a major way. Her doctors have given her very little hope that the cancer is not likely to return, which means that she will have to live with the fact that it may come back.
“With that being said, I will still have to fight the comeback all the time,” she stated.
Notwithstanding, Clea has uncovered the inner strength that she was unaware of. “I didn’t know that I had so much strength in me,” she confessed — a statement that while cancer might have turned her world upside down, it also signaled her fortitude.
