*Dammit, Al Roker just shared some bad news. He has prostate cancer.
Roker, 66, made the announcement this morning on the “Today” show. The revered weatherman and journalist said that he will be taking time off to undergo surgery.
“After a routine check-up in September, turns out I have prostate cancer,” Roker said. “And it’s a good news-bad news kind of thing. The good news is we caught it early, not great news is that it’s a little aggressive so I’m going to be taking some time off to take care of this.”
After a red flag — a high prostate-specific antigen level — was raised at a physical on Sept. 29, Roker underwent an MRI and then a biopsy, which confirmed his diagnosis.
If all goes well, the beloved weather forecaster will have his prostate removed and said he hopes to return to the NBC program in two weeks.
“I don’t want people thinking, ‘Poor Al’ because I’m going to be OK,” Roker told the audience.
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“Fortunately his cancer appears somewhat limited or confined to the prostate, but because it’s more aggressive, we wanted to treat it, and after discussion regarding all of the different options — surgery, radiation, focal therapy — we settled on removing the prostate,” Dr. Vincent Laudone said on TODAY.
Al is sharing his journey to urge others at risk, particularly Black men, to make sure they see a doctor to get the proper checkups to stop a cancer that is very treatable if detected early.
“The problem for African American men is that any number of reasons from genetics to access to health care, and so we want to make it available and let people know they got to get checked,” Roker said.
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