Joan Lunden on the cover of the new People magazine
First, Joan Lunden announced on “Good Morning America” in June that she was battling breast cancer. Now she is the cover girl on the new issue of People magazine — bravely showcasing her bald head, self-shaved, before chemotherapy treatments would cause her to lose her hair.
In the new issue of the magazine, the former GMA anchor explains why she has opted for an aggressive chemo regimen — over undergoing a mastectomy. Fully aware that chemotherapy would make her hair fall out, Lunden decided to shave it all off, one day after she went public with her diagnosis.
“You wonder how your hair is going to fall off, when it’s going to fall out. I knew I was going to lose it, so I just decided to own it,” Lunden told People.
Her decision to pose for the magazine cover, Lunden said, “I decided I was going to help others and show women this is not the end of the world. You can go on.”
The veteran broadcaster decided against an invasive mastectomy or lumpectomy, in favor of chemotherapy. Her treatment was focused on the chemo shrinking her tumors so that they could eventually be entirely removed in their entirety via minimally invasive surgery.
After 12 weeks of chemotherapy, Lunden’s tumors were shrunk by nearly 95 percent and she underwent surgery to remove the remaining mass on Wednesday.