TwitterSandra Lee said she had "good news" to share on Good Morning America Tuesday—and she wasn't kidding! "Last time I came and I shared with you some very bad news," the Food Network star said, "but this time I'm coming to share with you that my doctors have said I am cancer free and I am ready to go."
Lee was diagnosed with breast cancer in March and underwent a lumpectomy prior to moving forward with a double mastectomy in May. She said Tuesday that she is now a Stand Up to Cancer ambassador.
The chef celebrated being cancer free at Sunday's Emmys. She wore a Thierry Mugler gown from the 1970s that she had owned but was unable able to wear due to its neckline. "Women are not just about their boobs, which is a statement I was making when I wore that dress...I couldn't wear it because I was a little bit too big on top and so then I turned, as you say, my mess into my message and I got to wear that plunging dress," Lee said, adding, "It doesn't matter if you are a DD, which I was, or an A, which I am."
Lee said she will wait until February, after next year's Super Bowl, to decide whether to undergo reconstruction surgery. "I don't even know how I feel anymore," she said on Good Morning America. "Like, I feel so young and liberated!"
The 49-year-old cookbook author also told Robin Roberts that she had a frank conversation with her doctor after reading a New York Times article about cancer treatment. "It was a front-page article about how to deal with D.C.I.S. and-or early stages of cancer and how you should have a wait-and-see approach, which is absolutely ridiculous. Why we would consider negotiating with cancer is beyond me," said Lee, who was hospitalized in August as the result of an infection stemming from her double mastectomy. "'Let's just wait and see what it does.' It's like a terrorist that lives inside your body and we're going to wait and see what it does? We know what it's going to do. I have a very clear perspective of what that is and I'm thrilled with my decision and I know what the decision is for every woman in my family."
Lee, the longtime partner of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, urged women to take advantage of early detection technologies and treatments, which she said became available thanks to the "beautiful leaders that came before us." The chef added, "The researchers and the doctors and the nurses and the other warriors, not just breast cancer for all cancer, that came before us and that sacrificed their lives so that we could have early detection. It's only respectful to ourselves and to their work and what they gave up for us to get our tushies in there and get it diagnosed and then cut it out and take care of it."