erin andrews is opening up about how she handled her emotional well-being during her cervical cancer journey in 2016, sharing that she could have responded in a healthier way.
“In fact, I probably didn’t handle it the best way I could,” the Fox Sports host said in an interview for the Selena Gomez Newsletter. wonderfull mind when reflecting on the diagnosis. “Only a very small group of people knew about it. And I didn’t even tell my co-workers, who are like family to me.”
Before going public with the news of her health trip in January 2017, Andrews kept her lips tight about what was going on. And instead of allowing herself to heal from the emotional and physical toll of doctor visits and resulting surgeries, she relied heavily on the few people in the know to be strong for her as she tried to continue living life as usual.
“When it all happened, I got into a state of mind that I was in week three of the football season, [and because Fox was covering] the Super Bowl that year, I didn’t want to mentally deal with it at all. Because, for me, playing football, and also hosting dancing with the stars at the time, it was too important to me,” she explained. “I was so obsessed with not missing a game, not showing any weaknesses there and not missing any dancing with the stars. So I made my family and friends deal with it, even though I was the one who had the surgeries.”
in one piece for Sports Illustrated documenting her experience with the diagnosis and surgeries that ultimately made her cancer-free, Andrews recalled emphasizing the importance of being able to show up to do her job as she was wheeled into her first operating room. “I’m not watching any football matches at home. This is [Fox’s] Super Bowl year, and I’m not going to miss the Super Bowl,” he said at the time. And five days after that surgery, he worked out on the sidelines of a Packers-Cowboys game at Lambeau Field.
Ultimately, the weakness he feared people would see once he revealed the truth of his situation became a clear sign of Andrews’ strength. He even had the opportunity to help others become more aware of his cervical health.
“I knew when we told that story [of my diagnosis], was going to explode, and then the morning it premiered, it was on all the morning shows. when they were reporting [on the] morning shows, they attached the numbers and statistics on how many women have cervical cancer and why it’s so important to get checked out. I’m proud of myself for speaking out about it, even though it’s your reproductive system, it’s your vagina. Who wants to talk about it publicly?” she shared with wonderfull mind. “I work in a field where there are a lot of men, and a lot of them came up to me to thank me because they went and told their mothers, their aunts, their sisters, their wives, their cousins to get checked out.”
Even after that experience, Andrews admitted that she is hard on herself when it comes to maintaining a balance between her professional and personal endeavors. She has also found it difficult to prioritize her mental health or find ways to calm her anxiety.
“I tend to hoard when I start thinking about something that gives me anxiety,” she said. “I’m not a person who sits there and goes, ‘You know what? What’s going to happen is what’s going to happen. We’re going to deal with it.’ I absolutely tend to beat him to death. [laughs]. That goes for a lot of things in my life. So I’m trying to work really hard to breathe in the positivity and let the negativity out.”
And while learning to “not hold back my emotions” is a goal for the 44-year-old, she chooses to embrace the things she knows will make her happy.
“I try to work on my breathing. This is something I started last year. I’ll turn on a meditation app and try to relax that way.” [And] if not in the middle of the night how do i try to work on my mental health every day [is] exercise,” she said. “It helps my mental health a lot. I mean, my husband always says that you can tell when I’ve been exercising because my mood has improved. it’s like him Legally Blonde comment on happy people.
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