“Boy Meets World” Star Danielle Fishel Has Revealed That She Has Breast Cancer

The 43-year-old star, who shot to fame when she was cast as Topanga Lawrence in the ABC sitcom back in 1993, assured listeners that she is going to be "fine" as, thankfully, the cancer has been caught at a “very, very, very early” stage.

Danielle also explained that she made the decision to go public with her diagnosis in a bid to encourage others to get checked out, especially as the only reason the cancer was caught so early was because she didn’t put off her annual mammogram appointment.

Opening today’s episode of the podcast, Danielle said that her cohosts and decades-long friends, Will Friedle and Rider Strong, were two of the first people that she had shared the news with.

DCIS affects the cells of the milk ducts in the breast, with Cancer Research writing: “It means that some cells in the lining of the ducts of the breast tissue have started to turn into cancer cells. These cells are all contained inside the ducts. They have not started to spread into the surrounding breast tissue.”

If left untreated, DCIS can develop into invasive breast cancer, which means that the cancer cells have broken out of the ducts and spread into the tissue. At this point, the cells can also spread into a person’s lymph nodes and other parts of the body. 

Danielle explained: “I was diagnosed with high-grade DCIS with micro-invasion, and I’m going to be fine. I’m having surgery to remove it; I’m going to be on some follow-up treatment. I’ve had to make a lot of decisions over the last couple of days.”

But author Glennon Doyle inspired Danielle, with the star explaining: “[Glennon] often talks about how a lot of people like to save sharing their experiences until they've come out on the other side of it, so that they're able to say: ‘Here's the pretty picture of it all, here's what I've learned,’ the end of the story. But the place you have the most to learn from is at the very beginning of a story, or in the very messy middle of a story.”

“My first instinct when I was diagnosed was to do that clam-up thing,” she confessed. “Then what I realized is, the more people I talk to, the more people had their own experiences, either themselves being diagnosed with cancer or a family member who's been diagnosed with cancer, and the world of resources and experiences that can be shared by sharing it, and things that can be learned.”

“Instead, I was like: ‘Yeah, it’s time, gotta make that appointment,’ and they found it so, so, so early that I’m going to be fine,” she added. “So I want to share this because I hope that it will encourage anyone to get in there if it's time for your appointment, if you've never had an appointment before, get in there.”

“If you have to find out that you have cancer, find out when it's at stage zero if possible,” Danielle reiterated. “I have some big decisions ahead of me about what I want to do for treatment, I don't have all the answers yet; I still have doctors I need to meet with, oncologists, radiation specialists, hormone therapists, all kinds of stuff that I have still in front of me to decide.”

Danielle also explained that while she is “going to try” and not let her treatment impact the podcast, there may be times when things have to be postponed, or that she is absent from episodes.

Meanwhile, Rider revealed that he and his wife have four friends who are currently battling breast cancer as he also highlighted the importance of getting checked out.

Will added: “And for men, too, prostate exams and colonoscopies, these are all things that are super important so don’t put them off.”