A diagnosis and a recovery
Will Reeve, an anchor on Good Morning America, has announced that he was diagnosed with testicular cancer earlier this year. The 34-year-old, who is the son of Superman actor Christopher Reeve, learned of the diagnosis in the spring, according to People. The cancer had spread to lymph nodes in his abdomen. As of a check-up on September 8, Reeve is cancer-free.[S1]
Reeve recounted that the first sign came while he was showering, when he felt a lump on a testicle. He assumed it was harmless and might clear up by itself. His wife, Amanda Dubin Reeve, urged him to have a doctor examine it and get an ultrasound. The result was cancer, and in May surgeons removed the affected testicle. Tests then revealed the disease had spread to lymph nodes in his abdomen. A six-hour surgery followed in June to take those out, after which he began chemotherapy.[S1]
A family legacy of sharing adversity
Reeve credited his parents' example with giving him the push to speak publicly about his illness. In 1995, when Will was two, his father suffered a horse-riding accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down. Christopher Reeve went on to campaign for spinal cord injury awareness and research, founding the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation with his wife, Dana Reeve. Christopher passed away in 2004 at 52; Dana died two years afterward of lung cancer at 44. Will, together with siblings Matthew and Alexandra, paid tribute to them in the 2024 documentary Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story.[S1]
Reeve told People that he was raised to share his struggles if doing so might help others, and that watching his parents turn their adversity into something hopeful had a major impact on how he tries to live. He also described feeling closer to his late parents during his own treatment. He noted the irony that 20 years after his mother died of lung cancer at Memorial Sloan Kettering, he was in the same building being treated for cancer. He said he was experiencing life as each of his parents at the same time: as a cancer patient at Memorial Sloan Kettering, he gained firsthand insight into what his mother went through, while also learning more about what his father faced in the final nine years of his life, when Dana and the family cared for him. Reeve added that his wife, who has reminded him of his mother since the day they met, took on the role of wife and caregiver.[S1]
Balancing treatment and work
Reeve described a routine of heading from Good Morning America straight to the hospital for chemotherapy, then taking a few days off to recuperate after each treatment. His last round came on July 31. He called his ABC coworkers family and credited them with carrying him through, adding that he felt lucky the cancer was found early. Getting to the other side, he said, meant clearing some flaming hoops, though he recognized the outcome would have been far worse had he dismissed the lump or put off seeing a doctor.[S1]
