David Yellen/USA WEEKEND
More
Getting breast cancer is never good news but along her journey, Hoda Kotb, the 47-year-old Today show’s fourth hour co-host, managed to learn a lot about how to live her best life then, now and in the future:
Take what you need.
“So nonchalant was I about my biopsy after a weird mammogram — I had no family history, I didn’t smoke, I ran in Central Park, I try to eat okay — that when the phone rang the next day and I saw Mt. Sinai Hospital on the caller ID, I didn’t even dismiss the intern sitting in my office with me. But then the Mt. Sinai caller said — and I only remember this — ‘not good news for you’ and then he said ‘cancer’ and other words like that and when you hear that the rest is a big tune out. When I told the intern I had to reschedule, she asked — now keep in mind, she didn’t see my phone — ‘Before I go, can I hug you?’ and I looked at this kid and I hugged her. You know how sometimes they say ‘god gives you just what you need when you need it.' I don’t remember much about her, it was such a blur of a day but I remember she was just what I needed on that day.”
Appreciate what you have.
“At the end of the day, I went to my boss to tell him, I was scared going in because I hadn’t really said it out loud to very many people, just to my sister, my mom, a couple of my close friends, I said ‘I have breast cancer’ and I started bawling. What he said to me was, “I know a lot of women with breast cancer and they all have one thing in common.’ I asked, ‘What’s that?’ and he said, ‘they’re still here.” I don’t remember much about that pre-game time but I remember him saying that to me.“
Find the right mate.
“The most challenging thing of the whole ordeal and it’s sounds weird because I don’t care about physical stuff or at least I didn’t think I did, when they do surgery and do reconstruction, it looks funny. I used to get into shower and just sob and I know it sounds like I’m self-absorbed but I’m really not. But there’s just something about seeing this road map of scars that is not pleasant. I was afraid after this, even after you feel better emotionally I knew I would at some point start dating again and that was unnerving a little bit. You do get a little uncomfortable because it’s such a sensitive thing. It helped me find the right person, in some ways, because you need to find someone who doesn’t care about that sort of thing who cares about you for you.”
Bad things can lead to good things.
“These young girls, in their twenties are at the end of the line [at a book signing for her book, Hoda: How I survived War Zones, Bad Hair, Cancer, and Kathie Lee] and they don’t seem in our demo but I ask them if I can sign something for them and they say, ‘No no we want to give you something.’ And it’s a list of "ten reasons you should date our dad." My friend Bethenny Frankel, you know she’s got brass ones, and she had them go get their dad, Jay, we all went for a light bite and we’ve been dating ever since. If I hadn’t written that book, if I hadn’t gotten sick, you can take it all the way back. You just never know when you’re going to meet the right guy.”
It's a journey.
“There are really, really dark days but the idea that I’m sitting here talking about my boyfriend, my job that I enjoy, would have been unimaginable because I was on my knees in the fetal position under the covers sucking my thumb like everyone whose been there and I think you have to allow yourself to go through stages.”
Life lesson:
“I realized my life had margins and it was to be valued not wasted. I don’t waste time. When you realize there is a start and a finish and when you get to a certain age, when can see the end, you start to reassess your life.”
POWERED BY USA WEEKEND Magazine & more than 
