NEED TO KNOW<\/p>\n
Sitting in a sea of pink, surrounded by hundreds of Today viewers \u2014 numerous breast cancer survivors among them \u2014 Jill Martin<\/a> says she can’t help but feel grateful.\n<\/p>\n The NBC morning show contributor finds herself using that word over and over again as she talks, laughing lightly because she says she doesn’t want to sound redundant. Still, that one word really does encapsulate how she feels.\n<\/p>\n “I’ve been through such hell for the past two years that the only way for me to move forward is to turn pain into purpose. And so to have a platform like the Today Show to be able to amplify genetic testing, to be able to use my platform to spread awareness about a test that saved my life? I wouldn’t be sitting here today if not,” she tells PEOPLE amid the show’s “Pink Plaza” event on the first day of Breast Cancer Awareness Month<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n “Honestly, it’s hard for me to say that, but had I not done that spit test, I would not have been here today. So every day to me is such a gift,” she adds. “I woke up today and thought, ‘How grateful am I that I get to go to a place that supports a message that I feel like is higher than me and why I was given cancer?’ That is my purpose.”\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Martin was diagnosed<\/a> with aggressive stage 2b breast cancer in 2023. Despite a clean mammogram and sonogram months earlier, results from a genetic test revealed that Martin had inherited the BRCA2 mutation \u2013 not from her mother, who is a breast cancer survivor herself, but from her father\u2019s side of the family.\n<\/p>\n It was during pre-operative MRI ahead of the double mastectomy Martin had agreed to that she learned she already had a 1- to 2-inch cancerous mass in her left breast.\n<\/p>\n “Everyone’s been through some level of trauma, and I think you’re defined by how you deal with trauma and then the period where you come back [from it],” Martin, who is cancer-free, says now. “That small period of time to me is where your integrity comes from.”\n<\/p>\n In deciding to share her journey with Today viewers every step of the way, she in turn was opening herself up to the world in her most vulnerable moment. She never hesitated.\n<\/p>\n “I’ve been here [at Today] for almost 20 years, and it’s the good and the bad we share. And I just felt like it was a disservice to our viewers to [only] share all the good things when all the happy happens,” Martin says. “And then the bigger thing was when my surgeon said to me, ‘Well, what if something happens?’ And I said, ‘Then even more so, I need to go and tell the story.’ ”\n<\/p>\n Jill Martin in November 2024.<\/p>\n Jamie McCarthy\/Getty\u00a0<\/p>\n Dr. Matt Goldstein is the CEO of Jscreen<\/a>, the company that is providing the genetic testing kits for Today viewers who signed up to receive one.<\/p>\n “To partner with Jill Martin on the Today show is obviously a huge deal for us. And I think most importantly, it’s an opportunity to raise awareness around how powerful this intervention is and to ensure that people know it’s easy and that we can provide a really, really high-quality service to make sure that they’re supported all the way through,” he says, emphasizing that the process is actually quite simple.\n<\/p>\n Never miss a story \u2014 sign up for\u00a0PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter<\/a>\u00a0to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer\u200b\u200b, from celebrity news to compelling human-interest stories.<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n JScreen also offers a virtual appointment with a genetic counselor after the results are ready.\n<\/p>\n