When I pick up the phone to speak with NBC Today Show co-anchor Hoda Kotb, her greeting is full of energy and warmth that transcends the phone lines and, truth be told, she catches me a little off-guard: “Hi, Honey. How’s life?” Wait…aren’t I supposed to be the one asking the questions?

But Hoda’s greeting — I come to learn — speaks to exactly who she is today: a veteran reporter, accustomed to asking the questions, certainly, but also a woman who is passionate about living life fully and appreciating the connections she makes. “I’m not wasting one more minute,” Hoda says of the fresh, hard-won perspective that now defines her life. And though her greeting and her personality radiate a naturalness and a generous ease, there’s no question that the story of her transformation over the past year is one fraught with personal challenge. For a woman who has told countless important stories of personal triumph, realizing her own strength has become perhaps the biggest story of her impressive career.

As co-anchor of the Today Show’s fourth hour, as a Dateline NBC correspondent, and in her years of television reporting (in New Orleans, Florida, and Mississippi) that led up to her roles at NBC, Hoda has delivered compelling stories on an incredibly wide range of domestic and international topics. Among the stories she has reported have been segments from Iraq and Afghanistan, coverage of the 2004 tsunami, and very personal reporting related to Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath in New Orleans, where she lived for six years. Hoda’s work has garnered numerous awards for the four-time Emmy nominee, including the 2008 Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award and a Peabody Award.

Ultimately, all of Hoda’s experience could not have prepared her for the one story that would truly change her life. In February 2007 she was diagnosed with breast cancer after her gynecologist discovered lumps in her breast during a routine exam. Though she hosts a syndicated show for NBC called Your Total Health, at 43 Hoda had not yet had a mammogram. Now, describing her own lack of screening, her voice reflects her awareness of the irony of the situation: “I just didn’t do it,” she says. “I wasn’t scared of it. I ask people all the time why they haven’t gotten checked for various things, and here I was not getting screened.” Now, however, with a diagnosis in hand, Hoda was able to use the resources she had as a journalist to make sure she faced her diagnosis head-on and made the right decisions about her care.

'I had a lot of help'
She credits her many friends and colleagues with helping her find a truly wonderful medical team. “I had a lot of help at NBC. We have great doctors here.” And though she had many recommendations as a result of the input, she says it ultimately came down to personality when she chose her physician. “I must have seen six doctors. After a while, when everyone tells you that you should have the same procedure, it’s about a personality. I just found a doctor whom I clicked with.” Having chosen a doctor, Hoda says, the treatment decision was fairly straightforward: “I think the good thing was I only really had one choice for treatment (surgery). There was some question about [whether or not I should have] chemotherapy: one doctor said you should have chemo; one said you don’t have to have chemo; one said you can’t make a mistake either way. I opted not to do chemo because it wasn’t in my lymph nodes.” In the end Hoda’s treatment plan would include a mastectomy and immediate TRAM-flap reconstruction; she also made the decision to follow her surgery with five years of tamoxifen (Nolvadex^®).

It was at this point, Hoda says, with the treatment decision made and her surgery planned—when many people expected her to dive into research and continue to read up on her diagnosis—that she shut down. “I checked out,” she says of her lack of interest in the research and the investigation that many assumed would be a reporter’s instinct when facing a health crisis. “It was way too big. I was also going through marital issues then, and I think when you have two big things going on in tandem, you don’t really have the energy to focus on one completely or the other completely, so you don’t really focus on either of them too much. It’s self-preservation; it’s all your body can take, or your mind can take in. In a weird way, God helps you balance it all out. You learn how to preserve yourself.” So with her focus firmly on the future, and comfortable with her treatment choice, Hoda underwent surgery.

“The healing from the surgery was hardest,” she says. “They said it was going to feel like you’ve been hit by a Mack truck. Luckily I’ve never had to experience that, but I can see where they’re coming from.” Despite the pain, she says, waking from the eight-hour surgery was actually a day that allowed her to feel incredible gratitude for all the people who were supporting her. “I get out of surgery, I’m bleary eyed,” Hoda says, describing that day, “and the phone rings in the room and it’s Matt [Lauer]. They told me I had a visitor, and Al [Roker’s] in the room. Ann [Curry’s] on the phone. My room was full of flowers. My brother, my sister, my mom, my friends were there all the time.”

Moving on, looking forward
It took a couple of months, but before long she was up and walking around. In the months following, as her body healed, though she dealt with (and still experiences) night sweats from the tamoxifen, the toughest hurdles to do with treatment were—and continue to be—emotional. Hoda, who does not have kids of her own yet, must consider the toll that her treatment is taking on her ability to carry children. “Probably the hardest part about taking the pills is that they shut down your reproductive system, and I know every night when I take them that I’m contributing to that.” Still, she swallows the pills each night, focusing ahead.

Indeed, at the end of each journal entry she wrote throughout her treatment, Hoda would write the word Forward. It was a way, she says, to engage in the future and in the promise of what lay ahead. Because her future, despite the tough road she was treading, was bright, she had more clarity about her path than ever before. “I got a four-word take-away—and every woman who survives breast cancer gets this takeaway,” Hoda says. “We get, You can’t scare me. You get a bad card, but here’s that window that God opens: You can’t scare me. And there’s nothing better than getting that because small things don’t matter as much, because you get rid of the people in your life who are hurting you, because you hold on tight to those who help you; and it’s a moment of complete and total focus because for once in your life you get it.”

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