Boy Meets World star Danielle Fishel got emotional speaking about having cancer and how it has affected her family.
The 43-year-old played Topanga Lawrence in the 1990s television show and revealed she had breast cancer in August this year.
She shared an update about her treatment in Monday's episode of the Amy & T.J. podcast, co-hosted by former Good Morning America 3 anchors turned lovers, Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes.
Fishel and Robach spoke about their common experiences of having breast cancer—Robach was diagnosed in 2013— including the difficulties on telling loved ones about their diagnoses.
"It was hard for me to have to tell my husband," Fishel began, explaining that both of her in-laws died from cancer, but it was particularly hard explaining cancer and death to her son, Adler.
"Adler was three when she passed, he was very close to her and one of my big concerns was when he asked, 'why is grandma not here anymore?' My big concern was that if we tell him that she was sick, he's going to think the next time he gets a cold that he's gonna die or that the next time mommy or daddy is sick, we're going to die."
The actress wanted to be honest with Adler about why his grandma died and to be clear that "cancer doesn't always mean that you die, but sometimes it does."
But that changed after her own diagnosis and she hesitated to explain it because "I can't handle that possibility that they're gonna worry about me in that way."
"So they didn't know that I had cancer but they do know that I had a 'boo boo' that I had surgically removed from my body," Fishel explained, adding how she had to play gently with her children while she recovered, but was now back to full mommy-mode.
Fishel had two lumpectomies to help her treatment, and spoke more about her treatment options with Robach and Holmes.
"I need to go on some sort of estrogen blocker, which, you know I'm not exactly looking forward to because I've heard about mixed results and side effects from other people," she said. "I also will most likely need to have targeted radiation, possibly full breast radiation."
Fishel has some medical appointments next week where she will make decisions about her treatment options with with her medical team, but until then she wanted "to stay focused on my family, the community around me and very specifically spreading the message that has been so helpful to me," explaining that positive messages from others "really stopped me from turning inward."
Fishel and has been married film producer Jensen Karp since November 2018 and they share two children, Adler, 5, and Keaton, 3.
English (US) ·