Sara Sidner’s 2025 Heroes of the Year Speech:
Last week I did something I hadn’t done for nearly two years of cancer treatments and surgeries. I laughed. Not the polite chuckle, or a light giggle. I laughed from the bottom on my diaphragm the kind of uncontrolled wild laugh that causes a snort at the end and tears to run down your face because you can’t stop.
Then I cried. Because I realized that I hadn’t heard that sound out of my body for so long. I was still secretly guarding myself for the next round of surgery. The next bout with pain. The next descent into depression and anxiety.
And then it happened. The sweet relief of laughing like we did when we were children.
I can not tell you the hell that it has been living inside my own mind during all this. And yet I am not special. I was one of the 281,550 people diagnosed with breast cancer in 2022 according to the American Cancer Society. Which has the mostly helpful website. I was diagnosed with stage 3 of the most common breast cancer, HR positive, HER negative.
The good thing about that is that doctors know well how to treat it. The bad thing is you get an extra little surprise with it when you are not ready: menopause. No slow wind up. Just boom straight, no chaser.
After 5 months of chemo, five weeks of daily radiation with weekends off {phew}, a double mastectomy, an infection that required surgery and then reconstruction I thought I would be done. Over it. Move-on-dot org. Nope. In walks the symptoms of menopause. I thought I was going insane.
Suddenly I am experiencing fear like I have never experienced before and I have been to actual war zones.
I experienced loneliness like I didn’t know existed.
I experienced rage that I didn’t know I was capable of.
And hot flashes that melt the makeup off my face live on tv.
And crippling brain fog that some days make me incoherent and strips away all my confidence.
Let me give you an example. Live on the air with my darling co-anchors John and Kate standing at the ready to be as brilliant and funny as they always are.
I read a segment. When it was time to toss back to John. I said okay over to you Sara. Yes, I said my own name. A full anchorman Ron Burgundy moment live on national TV.
There was nothing I could do but laugh at myself. The crew gave me shit because they know I like a good ribbing.
But then I went to the bathroom checked every stall to make sure no one was in there, and I cried in utter frustration.
I can’t do this anymore I thought. My brain is not well.
The next week my reconstructive surgery was scheduled. I didn’t have to do it anymore for eight weeks.
I was at home my body sliced and diced I was forced to be still.
My life got really quiet and that quiet changed me forever.
In that quiet I suffered with the most terrible thoughts about myself and the world. I have always been my own personal terrorist. But this time I had to sit with it without distraction.
And then decided to do something about it. First I began walking like my life depended on it. Then I began to read. Like whole books without distraction.
I read Don’t Believe Everything You Think, a book by Joseph Nyguen who suffered with anxiety his whole life and then found the solution. It is about the devastating lies we feed ourselves and how to unravel that kind of thinking.
I read The Four Agreements which are: be impeccable with your word, don’t take anything personally even compliments, always do your best with the beautiful caveat that somedays your best will be different depending on change because you are sick or tired but do the best you can with whatever circumstance you find yourself in. And don’t make assumptions.
And I read The Glucose Revolution. I’ve been a chunky chick all my life and this book has transformed the way I eat in the simplest ways. Its not only taken 15 pounds off my body without …best of all it’s helping clear my mind.
I guess what I am trying to say is I learned what self-care really looks like. It is not the paint on your toes or a blowout. It’s removing the dirt of shame, self-criticism, and perfectionism from your mind.
This world will confuse you with all the messages that bombard your ears and eyes.
It will tell you the most beautiful lies about what success is supposed to look like and feel like.
It will show you the epitome of beauty and whisper constantly in your ear that in order to attain it you must contort your body into a shape that resembles modeled plastic and erase the sagging, the stretch marks, the lines, all signs of a human life lived.
Don’t fall for it.
There is nothing wrong with you. There is nothing you need to do to make yourself a better human. Accept yourself. Become your best friend.
If cancer has taught me anything it is that this life is beautiful. The little things are actually the biggest things like being able to see your mother’s face, or hold your husband’s hand, or hug your best friend or listen to Vivaldi or Tupac. Or smile or sing or dance or have a quiet conversation with a stranger that expands your world. These little things add up to a big full life.
The joy and the suffering are a sign that you are living. Do it all with gusto. Feel everything and do it with gratitude because you have the most precious thing you will ever receive. That is each and every breath. The sign of life itself. Please don’t waste your life.
