R&B singer Shanice Wilson is opening up about her recent breast cancer battle and also encouraging routine mammograms, which she says she skipped for eight years.
The 51-year-old singer known for 90’s bops I Love Your Smile and When I Close My Eyes revealed that doctors discovered a tumor in her breast during a double mastectomy surgery in May.
She was screened two months earlier for the disease after feeling a lump.
Doctors initially found a non-invasive, stage zero cancer called ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) but during the procedure discovered she actually had a stage 1, one-centimeter tumour in her breast.
“When I had my surgery and they told me I had cancer, I literally lost my smile,” Shanice told Michael Strahan during a Good Morning America interview.
The Grammy Award nominee said she avoided mammogram screenings for eight years after a health scare when doctors misdiagnosed her a cyst as a cancerous lump in her breast.
“Because of the fear that I had when they thought they saw something, I didn’t go for eight years,” she confessed.
In September, Wilson took to social media to chronicle her health journey with a video taken at the hospital.
“This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to face in my life but I know God is with me and everything is gonna go well,” she said.
Wilson, who is currently touring the nation portraying First Lady Michelle Obama in 44: The Obama Musical, hopes her journey inspires others to be more proactive.
“I just want to tell women how important it is to get your mammograms,” she said. “If I would have gone sooner, I could have caught (it) when it was just at stage zero.” – New York Daily News/Tribune News Service
