Al Roker, the Today Show star, 66, has recently thanked his fans for their support after revealing his diagnosis of prostate cancer.
In an Instagram video posted on Saturday, Roker said, “Oh my gosh, is this not a glorious day or what? Fantastic. And it reminds me that I’ve got to thank each and every one of you for your prayers, your support, your well wishes after I announced on Friday that I am battling prostate cancer.”
“And with any luck, next week I’m going to be having prostate cancer surgery, and I’m going to tell prostate cancer, to borrow a phrase, ‘you’re fired,’” he added.
The journalist captioned the post, “I am beyond #grateful to the outpouring of #prayers and #goodwishes since I shared I have #prostatecancer but going to tell that cancer, #yourefired.”
Roker revealed his prostate cancer diagnosis during Friday’s Today show broadcast, adding that he will undergo surgery next week.
“It’s a good news-bad news kind of thing,” he said. “Good news is we caught it early. Not-great news is that it’s a little aggressive, so I’m going to be taking some time off to take care of this. We’ll just wait and see, and hopefully, in about two weeks I’ll be back [on the show].”
Roker’s physician, Dr. Vincent Laudone, said the weather forecaster’s cancer “appears somewhat limited or confined to the prostate.”
“Fortunately his cancer appears somewhat limited or confined to the prostate, but because it’s more aggressive, we wanted to treat it, and after discussion regarding all of the different options — surgery, radiation, focal therapy — we settled on removing the prostate,” Dr. Laudone said.
Roker was diagnosed with prostate cancer during a routine physical when his physician found that he had “elevated prostate-specific antigen (PSA).” PSA test is recommended for prostate cancer screening.
After that, Roker had an MRI and a biopsy, which confirmed the diagnosis of prostate cancer on September 29.
Rocker recalled, “When he started, he closed his door and said, ‘I always like to have these discussions face to face. And I was like, ‘Uh oh. Well, that doesn’t sound good.’ … You hear the word cancer and your mind goes — it’s the next level, you know?” The article originally appeared on PEOPLE.
