The Office's Jenna Fischer Says Breast Cancer Diagnosis Made the Important Things in Life 'So Clear So Quickly'

Jenna Fischer is looking at life differently after going through treatment for stage 1 triple positive breast cancer.

In an emotional companionship with TodayHoda Kotb aired on NBC’s morning show on Monday, October 21, the actress — known for her role in Office — she said finding out she had cancer put everything in focus.

“All the most important things became so clear so quickly,” Fischer said in her first interview about her health. “I think the world is such a beautiful place in all its strangeness 1729521027.”

Even things that used to irritate me now I sometimes find charming, she continued, using traffic as an example. “‘Oh, look at you, sweet traffic,'” Fischer joked in a baby-like voice. “‘Look at all those people just walking. Oh, that guy’s mad!” ”

The 50-year-old continued to encourage other women watching at home to have hope during tough times, explaining that while she was recovering, she watched Kotb, Savannah Guthrie, Jenna Bush Hager and “all the guys” on Today show.

“I know there’s a lady right now sitting on the bench at the end of the bed with her pillow wondering, ‘What’s next for me?’ ” Fischer said. “And I just want to say, ‘No, you’re going to get out of the loop, just like I am. You will get your life back. You won’t even believe all the beauty and miracles that are in front of you on this road.’ ”

Jenna Fischer.

Charles Sykes/Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty

Office Alum Jenna Fischer reveals breast cancer diagnosis

Fischer first shared the news of her diagnosis in an Instagram post on Oct. 8 in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. She said further Today that a year before she had gone for her “boring” routine mammogram exam that she had been “postponing”.

Three weeks later she was asked to go in for another mammogram and breast ultrasound, officers told her she had “dense tissue” that made things difficult to see. “It was a total eye roll,” Fischer recalled. “That’s why I would postpone this, because I have to come back again.”

But Fischer’s mood changed when she was told she needed a biopsy. “The mood has changed,” she said. – That’s when I got nervous.

The doctors did a few more tests and a month after that mammogram, Fischer was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of breast cancer. She had a lumpectomy in January 2024 to remove the tumor, which fortunately was caught early and did not spread. The actress also underwent 12 rounds of chemotherapy starting in February, three weeks of radiation starting in June, and has since been treated with infusions of two other drugs, which she will continue to take until February 2025.

Jenna Fischer at home with her family.

Jenna Fischer/Instagram

However, the good news is that doctors have told Fischer that there is no longer any evidence of cancer. Although her infusion center didn’t have a bell, she celebrated the milestone in her backyard with her husband, Lee Kirk, and their two children: son Weston Lee, 13, and daughter Harper Marie, 10.

“My husband Lee has been absolutely amazing,” Fischer said. “A typical morning for us would be when we both get up in the morning, make the school lunch and leave school. But under these circumstances, the most – oh my God, I’m getting emotional about it now – but you know, the most I could do was just go downstairs and just sit at the table with a cup of coffee, and he did everything else.”

As for her children, Fischer said they have been by her side throughout her journey.

“The biggest thing I wanted them to know is that all the ways I looked sick during this process were side effects of the treatment, they weren’t the cancer I was sick with. They were side effects,” Fischer told Kotb. “And then we just did it together and they were amazing.”

In her social media post on Oct. 8, Fischer said she was “feeling great.”

She told her followers that she was sharing her story to encourage others to stay on top of their annual mammograms and ask their doctors to calculate their breast cancer risk score.

“If I had waited six months longer, things could have been much worse,” she said. “It could have expanded. When I saw women posting photos of their mammogram appointments on Instagram, I had to make my own (which I was late for). I’m so glad I did. Consider this your kick in the ass to do it.”

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Source: HIS Education