When daytime stars from the past and the present joined together on May 16 for the virtual event Daytime Stands Up: A Benefit for Stand Up to Cancer -- We All Have a Story, Guiding Light star Kim Zimmer made her own emotional reveal when she told the soap world she had been diagnosed with breast cancer last fall.
Zimmer was part of a discussion about her character Reva Shayne's breast cancer journey, alongside former co-star Tina Sloan, whose character, Lilian Raines, also battled cancer in the 1990s. Zimmer became emotional when she chose to reveal her own ongoing breast cancer journey.
"Oh, geez," Zimmer said. "I was diagnosed with breast cancer on November 6, and if it wasn't for a wonderful circle of friends that I have -- and not to mention my husband, A.C. Weary, and my family, [my children], Rachel, Max, and Jake who call me every day, I would have fallen apart."
Zimmer, whose soap credits also include The Doctors, One Life to Live, and Santa Barbara, went on to offer a little more information about her diagnosis, telling fans that she had a mastectomy and that her last chemo infusion is on Tuesday, May 21.
The actress encouraged women to keep up with their routine mammograms while stressing the importance of catching the disease as soon as possible for the best possible outcome.
"Early detection, early detection, early detection, early detection," she said. "Get your mammograms, get them soon."
Despite what she has been going through for the last half-year, Zimmer remained positive about her prognosis. She once again credited her family for being her rock through treatment.
"I mean, I'm a tough broad, and I handled this," she explained. "But if I didn't have the friends that I have, the support system that I have, the fabulous doctors, a fantastic plastic surgeon, I would have fallen apart."
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