Former Dancing With the Stars host Samantha Harris is on the road to recovery after receiving her second breast cancer diagnosis in August 2024.
Harris, 51, who was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014, told People in an interview published on Tuesday, April 1, that she fosters a healthy mindset. “I feel of myself as cancer-free,” she told the outlet, adding that she is feeling “great.”
It comes just seven months after Harris revealed that she was diagnosed with breast cancer for a second time, despite being in remission. “Hey everybody. I even have some shocking health news that I never thought in my lifetime again I might need to share, but I even have a breast cancer reoccurrence,” Harris shared via an August 2024 Instagram video. “[We] caught it early. It is vitally early. It’s in the identical exact location of my initial breast cancer [diagnosis] 10 years ago.”
In her latest interview, Harris revealed that while she was recovering from surgery to remove a cancerous tumor, she did experience a “setback” in November last 12 months. She had been on 10 days of mandated bed rest when she launched into a walk.
“For most individuals, that will mean just go walk down the block to the top of your street and are available back,” she told the outlet. “I went for 2 days in a row of [about] an hour of walking, considering that I used to be walking at a slow pace — but for me, that’s still an incredibly fast pace.”
Harris explained that two days of exertion led to a “red” and “inflamed” recovery site that scared her into considering she had taken significant steps backwards. “I used to be immediately so concerned that I had mainly undone all of the goodness of the surgery and first 10 days of recovery and now was fearing that I had possibly either an infection or that my implant was being rejected,” she said. “I wasn’t sure what was occurring. So, the emotional roller coaster — took that deep dive again.”
As Harris continues her recovery, she added that “the brand new goal is to be sure that that my body shouldn’t be a bunch for any circulating tumor cells to come to a decision to choose a bunch organ.”
Harris added that her husband, Michael Hess, and two daughters, Josselyn, 17, and Hillary, 14, are helping her discover a brand new level of normalcy. “You desire to get back to normal or regardless of the latest normal is,” she said. “And so if this might be a blip on the radar of our daughters’ memories, that will make me very glad.”
