Jenna Fischer broke down in tears as she reflected on her journey to becoming breast cancer-free, just two weeks after sharing her first health news.

“I never had a big shave-your-head moment,” Fischer told The Today Show host Hoda Kotb in a special interview segment on Monday. She explained that losing her hair and vomiting were some of the fears she had while receiving chemotherapy. “I didn’t throw up, but I did lose my hair… I would do a very extensive combover.”

On October 8, the ‘Office’ actress announced she was cancer-free after being diagnosed with stage 1 triple-positive breast cancer, which she learned about through a regular checkup.

“I went in for my routine mammogram. It’s that annoying appointment that I had postponed, and three weeks later they said, ‘There were a few spots that are hard to see; you have dense tissue. We recommend that you have another mammogram and then a breast ultrasound,” Fischer explained, adding that it was an “eye roll” scenario as she admittedly viewed the further warning steps as an inconvenience.

“It was a total eye roll. That’s why I postponed this, because now I have to go back. After the ultrasound they said, ‘Well, we found something. We’ll have to do a biopsy,” Fischer said.

“That’s when I got nervous,” she said of her first procedure, which she was then able to access through a medical portal. “I was walking, checking the portal during the walk and then I saw words like: invasive, ductal, carcinoma, malignantand I thought, ‘Those words sound like cancer words.’

Then she heard her diagnosis, a rare aggressive form of breast cancer. Fischer said she knew she would have to undergo surgery, chemotherapy, radiation and then targeted therapies with Herceptin and Tamoxifen, which she “still does now,” adding, “I still have my port, and that’s where I got my chemo…I’ll do that until February next year.”

During her fight, she said her husband and former co-star/bestie Angela Kinsey were by her side.

“My husband Lee was absolutely incredible. A typical morning for us would be us both getting up in the morning and making school lunches and school drop offs. But given the circumstances…” Fischer paused as she began to burst into tears. “The best I could do was just go downstairs and sit at the table with a cup of coffee, and he did the rest.”

As for Kinsey, Fischer said she told her friend she wanted to continue recording their “Office Ladies” podcast, but she didn’t want their staff to know about her diagnosis.

“From the beginning she said, ‘Whatever you need, just say, I’m here,’ and I said, ‘I want to keep working and I don’t want anyone at work to know.’ At work, I want this to be a space where we go and laugh, and I’m not a cancer patient. I need that.’ And she said, ‘OK,'” the “Mean Girls” star explained, noting that at one point Kinsey started wearing hats to work so Fischer wouldn’t be the only one wearing them to combat her hair loss. cover up.

After surgery, radiation and twelve rounds of chemotherapy, doctors confirmed that there was no evidence of cancer, Kotb explains. After reaching the end of the battle, Fischer said she wanted to do one thing to celebrate: ring the bell. But because her infusion center didn’t have a bell, her husband and family bought their own and celebrated at home.

“My husband, Lee, said, ‘What do you want to do to celebrate being done with chemo?’” she recalls. “I said, ‘I want a bell. I want to ring a bell in the backyard and I want confetti.”

The post Jenna Fischer gets teary as she reflects on breast cancer journey: ‘I’ve never had a big shaving-your-head moment’ | Video first appeared on TheWrap.