Sandra Lee, TV chef and Cuomo's girlfriend, to undergo double mastectomy for breast cancer

ALBANY — TV chef Sandra Lee, Gov. Cuomo’s longtime girlfriend, will undergo a double mastectomy this week after revealing Tuesday she has breast cancer.

Lee, 48, discussed the diagnosis during a gripping and emotional interview with breast cancer survivor Robin Roberts on ABC’s “Good Morning America” and in a story in People magazine.

Lee, who lives with Cuomo in Westchester County, said she’s already had a lumpectomy, but doctors found she didn’t have clear margins — tissue around the tumor still had cancer cells.

 

They told her she’d need six to eight weeks of daily radiation and suggested a mastectomy.

Asked whether she should get a double mastectomy, the doctors suggested she should, calling her a “ticking time bomb.”

The “Food Network” star told People she opted for the double mastectomy to avoid weeks of radiation and because “I never want to go through this again.”

Women diagnosed with her condition — ductile carcinoma in situ — have a 25% to 30% chance of having a recurrence if they have a lumpectomy. Getting radiation therapy after the procedure drops that rate down to 15%, according to Breastcancer.org.

A tearful Lee told Roberts she had a routine mammogram and received the news that she had cancer from her doctor 20 minutes after walking off the set of a March 27 photo shoot for the “Most Beautiful” issue of People magazine.

“I didn’t even cry,” she said. “I was stunned. That’s just how fast life turns. It turns on a dime.”

The kitchen celebrity said the first thing she did was call her sister. Then she called Cuomo.

“I think he was as stunned as I was,” she said.

Lee, who said she is fortunate the cancer was detected early, called Cuomo “extremely supportive.”

After her diagnosis, the governor, who rarely leaves the state, took her to the Turks and Caicos for three days, according to People.

The couple said he will also be in the operating room when she undergoes the surgery. And Cuomo said he expects to spend the night with her in the hospital afterward.

“To me it’s just another reminder — one phone call can change your life, and sometimes you get caught up in the day-to-day and all these little nuances that we think are so important at the time, and then you get a phone call that actually reminds you of what’s really important,” he said after an unrelated event with Timothy Cardinal Dolan on Long Island.

Lee’s diagnosis is another blow in what has been a trying year so far for the governor.

He lost his father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, on New Year’s Day and weathered his youngest daughter’s medical emergency in March.

The governor said he was happy he was with Dolan when Lee revealed the news.

“They say God works in mysterious ways. This is coincidental that Sandy came forward today and I happened to be with the cardinal,” Cuomo said.

Lee said her first focus is to get through the surgery and recover. After that, she said he will be “all over my siblings and nieces to get tested.”

She said she is going public in hopes of getting the word out that women — even those in their 20s and 30s — should get screened and have mammograms. She disagrees with a federal health panel that says women should wait until they turn 50 before having a mammogram.

“I’m 48 years old,” she said. “I’ve got a couple years till 50. If I would have waited, I probably wouldn’t even be sitting here.”

“Girls in 20s and their 30s just have to know,” she said. “And I don’t want women to wait. And that’s why I’m talking.”

She said that if speaking out “saves one person, and makes one more person go get a mammogram, and if they’re sitting down right now watching this, don’t watch this TV. Go pick your phone up, and call your doctor and get your rear end in there and get a mammogram right now.”

In an emotional Facebook post Tuesday night, Lee said: “So my prayers for all of you Number one — that you never receive this diagnosis.”

“Don’t think you’re safe even if you are in perfect health with no family history or warning signals — because believe me if you do that, you are risking your life,” she wrote.

Roberts noted she was 46 when she was first diagnosed.

Lee, who has no family history of breast cancer, said even as she knew people who struggled with breast cancer, like many women, she never thought it would happen to her.

“You hear about it, and it is always someone else,” she told Roberts. “It’s a friend that you sent flowers to and you wish well and that you watch every single day like I watched you. And you were my hero. But I never thought I would be dealing with this.”

Though stunned, Lee said she is also committed to an optimistic outlook.

“There’s two different ways cancer beats you,” she said. “It beats up your body, and it beats you up emotionally. I wasn’t going to let it rob me of one day of happiness.”

Friends and colleagues of Cuomo and Lee, including Mayor de Blasio, were quick to offer their support and well wishes.

“Chirlane and I are keeping Sandy and Andrew in our thoughts at this difficult time,” de Blasio said Tuesday in a statement. “It takes enormous courage to face a diagnosis like this, and still more to share it in the hopes of helping others.”