The ABC News correspondent, 34, says he was inspired by his parents’ example to share his story in hopes of helping others
“I was raised to share one’s struggles if, in doing so, that might help others,” says ABC News national correspondent Will Reeve.
Just two years old when his father, Superman actor Christopher Reeve, was thrown from a horse and became paralyzed from the neck down, Reeve grew up watching his dad and mom, Dana Reeve, fight for spinal-cord-injury awareness and research and launch The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation. Two years after his father died in 2004 at age 52, his mom died from lung cancer at 44.
“Watching my parents up close take the adversity they faced in their lives and repurpose it into something hopeful left a major impact on my life and how I try to live it,” Reeve says.
That lesson took on new meaning this past spring after Reeve, 34, was diagnosed with testicular cancer, which then spread to the lymph nodes in his abdomen.
Currently cancer-free (as of a checkup on Sept. 8) and inspired by his parents’ example, he’s sharing his own cancer story now, for the first time. “I have felt so loved and supported and rooted for by family, friends and strangers alike for my entire life,” says Reeve, who was 13 when his mom died and was then raised by the parents of his best friend, who lived across the street. “And that’s a big part of why I wanted to speak about this. I’m going to be fine. But this was a heck of a chapter.”
Reeve first noticed a tender lump on one of his testicles in the shower this past April. “I assumed it was nothing or would go away,” he says. But his wife of three months, wedding and event planner, Amanda Dubin Reeve, 30, urged him to get an ultrasound (“It’s probably nothing,” she told him, “but what if it’s something?”) “I was stunned,” says Reeve. In early May, he underwent an orchiectomy to remove the cancerous testicle, the standard surgical procedure for testicular cancer.
“I hadn’t had surgery since I got my tonsils out at 5,” says Reeve, who took a few days off work to recover. “So I was more nervous about the unknown of the surgery rather than the overwhelming realization that I would be losing an essential part of my body forever.”
He credits Amanda with encouraging — and persuading — him to get checked. “We talk about ‘in sickness and in health,” he says. “We got an early test of our vows, just a few months in.”
Adds Amanda: “The silver lining was that we had validation early in the marriage that we are well-equipped to tackle anything.” He also did sperm banking, “because we do want to start a family,” he notes. “And while an orchiectomy doesn’t prevent natural conception, you never know, so you want to be safe.”
They’d hoped it would all be just “a momentary blip in an otherwise great time in my life,” recalls Reeve. But further test results revealed that 95 percent of the testicular cancer found was embryonal carcinoma, an aggressive form of the disease, leading to a six-hour surgery on June 10 to remove some dozens of lymph nodes in his abdomen.
Three of those tested positive for testicular cancer, dictating two rounds of chemotherapy. “Every doctor I saw along the way was using what I call the good C-word—‘cure,’” says Reeve, who took two and a half weeks off from GMA to recover.
