Daymond John, an investor in the ABC series, “Shark Tank” is going public with his thyroid cancer diagnosis that he had treated.
“I had a very extensive physical and they discovered there was a nodule on my thyroid,” John tells Good Morning America Wednesday, May 10. “They removed it and it was stage 2 cancer on my thyroid. … I didn’t skip a beat. I went to [the doctor] and I got some early detections and I understood that I had a challenge and if I would attack it now, then I wouldn’t let it attack me. I had that removed. I didn’t miss anything, I was out partying and dancing two days later — not that I should have.
“I wanted to share this information with people,” he says. “Because what would I have went through if I decided to just stick my head in the sand and go, ‘You know what? I’m not going to check into stuff. It happens, it happens. It happens to everybody else,’ I would have had some big, big problems down the road.”
GMA host Robin Roberts said the medical community agrees early detection can improve the chances of success after treatment.
“I am absolutely great,” John says on how he’s doing after his surgery. “I have to monitor it for the rest of my life. I have another half of my thyroid still in. In the event it comes back, I will have to fight it. Thyroid cancer is a very slow-growing cancer.”
John went on to say it is important for him to be around for his three daughters and stressed the importance of getting cancer screenings like mammograms and colonoscopies.
“Success is being able to get up every single day and be happy,” he says.
