Rachel Maddow Reveals She Underwent Surgery For Skin Cancer, Urges Viewers to Get Checked

During Wednesday’s episode of MSNBC‘s The Rachel Maddow Show, host Rachel Maddow opened by explaining to her audience why she was out Monday and Tuesday and announcing an important health diagnosis.

Maddow said that while she and longtime partner Susan Mikula were at a minor league baseball game, Mikula noticed that a mole on Maddow’s neck had changed. After her hairdresser Dianne said the same, Maddow went to see her dermatologist.

“Long story short, Susan was right, Dianne was right,” Maddow said. “I went to the dermatologist, she said, ‘Hey, you know what? That mole has changed.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ve heard that.’ Did a biopsy, turns out it was skin cancer.”

The TV host had surgery to remove the cancer on Friday, and spent Monday and Tuesday recovering. She added that she’s in the clear now, and went on to thank the staff at NYU Langone, who “got all of it.”

While Maddow clarified that she’ll need to be continually checked, she’s “going to be absolutely fine.”

“I could have been on the air Friday night. I didn’t do that because I didn’t want to weird you out because of the visual of me having a band-aid,” she joked.

Maddow went on to urge viewers to get checked for skin cancer in order to catch potential health issues early.

“Even the skin cancers that are the deadliest cancers in this country, those are way more treatable than they used to be on one condition: That you get them early,” the host said. “Even the most worrying forms of skin cancer. If you identify it early enough, it is now quite treatable.”

The Rachel Maddow Show airs weeknights at 9 p.m. ET on MSNBC.

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