ABC News' Will Reeve reveals testicular cancer diagnosis, chemotherapy treatment
ABC News' correspondent Will Reeve is opening up for the first time about receiving a cancer diagnosis just months after getting married.
Reeve, a New York-based correspondent, reporting for ABC News platforms and shows including "Good Morning America," said on Tuesday that he was diagnosed in April with testicular cancer, a cancer that develops in the tissues of one or both testicles, according to the National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine.
Reeve, 34, said his wife, Amanda, whom he wed in January, encouraged him to get evaluated by a doctor in April after he noticed a lump in his left testicle.
An ultrasound discovered a mass in his testicle, requiring Reeve to undergo a procedure known as orchiectomy to remove his testicle.
The surgery in early May led to a diagnosis of testicular cancer, according to Reeve. He said he was diagnosed with embryonal carcinoma, an aggressive form of testicular cancer that is typically found in young to middle-aged individuals.
Following the diagnosis, Reeve said he underwent a second surgery, a retroperitoneal lymph node dissection, in June to remove dozens of lymph nodes to help prevent the cancer from spreading.
Because some of the lymph nodes removed during the six-hour procedure were cancerous, Reeve said he chose to undergo two cycles of chemotherapy to lower the odds of the cancer returning to nearly 1%.
In early July, Reeve began chemotherapy with his wife by his side. Together on treatment days, the two sat for nine hours at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.
For two hours Reeve underwent chemotherapy, and for another seven hours he underwent cold capping, a treatment sometimes used during chemotherapy to help prevent hair loss.
During his two weeks of recovery between his chemotherapy treatments, Reeve said he experienced side effects including bone pain, ringing ears, night sweats, blood clots and headaches.
At the end of July, Reeve was able to ring the bell at Sloan Kettering to signify the successful end of his treatment.
He said he did so with the thought of his late mom Dana Reeve, who also underwent chemotherapy at Sloan Kettering. Dana Reeve died of lung cancer at age 44 in March 2006.
Will Reeve said he especially thought of his late mom when he was able to do cold capping, which he described as a "gift" despite being a "really hard" process.
"I remember with my mom, when she got sick 20 years ago, I didn't really know that she was sick until she lost her hair," he said Tuesday on "GMA." "And I think anyone who has cancer or loves someone with cancer, that's sort of a tipping point when you know, oh man, this is real."
Will Reeve continued, "And to be able to look myself in the mirror every day and come here every day and be like, 'I feel good. I am good,' that was a major wind in my sails, for sure."
After his diagnosis, Will Reeve said a major concern for both him and his wife Amanda was their ability to have children. He said because of the steps they took, they will be able to have children in the future through medically necessary in-vitro fertilization, or IVF.
"We really want to be parents, and the great joy is that we are going to be able to have children, our own children," he said. "And that's what we want to do."
Will Reeve added that he is now sharing his own cancer diagnosis to help raise awareness of testicular cancer.
"I want folks to know that this is a thing that can happen. It's shocking. It's weird," he said. "It's slightly awkward to talk about just because of what we're really discussing here, but that you end up okay, almost always."
Tune into "Good Morning America" this Wednesday and Thursday from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. ET on ABC to hear Will Reeve share more about his cancer battle, as well as input from a doctor and other cancer patients.
