Eyewitness News reporter Stacey Sager returns to work despite cancer and life after chemotherapy

NEW YORK (WABC) — Eyewitness News celebrates a special homecoming on Tuesday as our friend and colleague Stacey Sager returns after her recent battle with cancer.

She is now battling cancer for the third time and always speaks openly about her experiences and tells us each time what this battle looks like.

Sager said returning to work at Eyewitness News is like coming home and she is full of hope.

“I have completed most of my treatment and am now in the final stages. I have completed four months of chemotherapy and 20 radiation sessions and have used the summer to be with my family, take my daughter to the places she needed to go and start a new medication,” Sager said.

The new drug, called Lynparza, is a targeted therapy for people with BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations that aims to prevent the disease from recurring.

The end of chemotherapy and radiotherapy marks the end of chapter one.

“Many people don't think about it, and for most people who get these cancers, there is treatment after treatment,” Sager explained.

These may include maintenance therapy, oral chemotherapy, tamoxifen, or medications such as Lynparza.

“PARP inhibitors block the mechanisms for repairing DNA damage. If a cell cannot repair its DNA, it cannot survive. The reason these drugs can be used specifically in BRCA carriers is because they already have deficiencies in repairing DNA damage. This is a combination of these two factors. So the vulnerability of the cells is exploited,” said Sager's doctor, Dr. Susan Domchek, executive director of the Basser Center for BRCA.

Having already inspired others who have followed her path, Sager says she believes in embracing what happens – whatever it is – and living your truth while being honest with yourself.

This includes accepting her grey hair – even when others ask her when she will dye it.

“I think it's important to be content with where you are and be happy where you are. And when I can do that, I'm usually happier,” Sager said. “Because if I'm wondering where I'm going to be next week or next month or what I don't have right now, that's not a really comfortable place to be.”

Sager says the general public and people who have never had cancer don't realize that all medications have side effects and toxicity, and that a patient's cancer journey doesn't end the day they ring the bell – it's just the end of a chapter.

Sager documented her journey in the Eyewitness News special “3 Decades, 3 Cancers.”

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