The tennis great opens up in her first U.S. interview about grappling with cancer and her friendship and rivalry with Chris Evert.
As an 18-time Grand Slam winner, Martina Navratilova is known as a fierce competitor. That tenacity helped her as she faced a double-whammy of having throat and breast cancer at the same time. The tennis star is opening up about her recent illnesses in her first U.S. interview since, a TODAY show exclusive.
“They were two totally different cancers unrelated to the first one," Navratilova said on TODAY."I’m trying to figure out ... am I that lucky or that unlucky?"“Physically, it’s been the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through,” she said. “I almost get PTSD when I come to New York several weeks of treatment were here.”
Martina Navratilova of the United States stretches to make a back hand return during the Women's Singles Final match against Zina Garrison at the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championship on July 7, 1990 in London, England.It had been four years since her previous mammogram when she was diagnosed with breast cancer for the first time, she revealed. She admitted that she did not realize that so much time had passed between the screenings.
Soon after, she visited her doctors, who conducted a variety of tests. In the examinations for the lump in her neck, doctors discovered the breast cancer. Even though both cancers were early stage, this was yet another surprising diagnosis for the Wimbledon champ. “Prognosis is much better in a patient who has human papillomavirus-related throat cancer than in a patient who has a tobacco-related throat cancer. They both develop squamous cell carcinoma, but they’re very different genetically,” Dr. Adam Jacobson, director of the Head & Neck Center at NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center, told.
“It puts you face-to-face with your morality, No. 1, because at the beginning, I wasn’t sure if it was treatable, so that was hard,” she said. “Once I got into the program it was a little easier emotionally, but more difficult physically … but I’m still standing.”“Thinking of Martina today and supporting her journey, like she did mine, with love and prayers. This is a woman who takes on challenges with strength and resilience.
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