Rancics to speak on cancer, fertility struggles
Celebrity personalities Bill and Giuliana Rancic will share their battle with breast cancer, while maintaining successful business lives and parenting a newborn baby boy tonight as a part of the University Lecture Series (ULS).
I plan to share everything that I experienced from the day I was diagnosed until the present day and where I am now on my journey, Giuliana Rancic said in a press release.
During the second week of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the Rancics will share their story and raise awareness of the disease that the U.S. National Library of Medicine estimates will affect one in eight women in their lifetimes.
According to ULS Executive Director Romel Boiser, a senior majoring in public health, the Rancics stop at USF is their first of many speaking engagements throughout the month to promote cancer awareness and share their experience with the disease.
Its great that we can tie in something as relevant as breast cancer awareness, and tell students and community members about all the different things that are available to them, and that they should get tested, Boiser said.
Giuliana Rancic, celebrity television personality known for her work as an anchor on E! News and award shows including the Golden Globes, Academy Awards and Miss USA, announced last October that she had been diagnosed with an early stage of breast cancer. By mid-October, she underwent a lumpectomy and radiation treatments, but by December she had decided on a double mastectomy to ensure that the disease never came back.
Breast cancer is a scary thing, but it is treatable, she said in the press release. I now know how important it is to live each day to the fullest.
It is so easy in our busy lives to take things for granted, but now I really try to savor each and every day and live life to the fullest. Its easy to sit around and feel sorry for
ourselves, but Ive chosen to be thankful for all of the positives in my life.
Rancic was initially recommended to have a mammogram done after attempts at pregnancy in 2010. Ultimately, she was successful in finding a surrogate to carry the pregnancy. On Aug. 29, 2012, Edward Duke Rancic was born.
With the recent birth of my son, I truly feel as if this journey has come full circle and I cant wait to share that with everyone, Rancic said.
Giuliana will share the microphone with her husband Bill, a celebrity businessman, author and winner of the first season of The Apprentice. On the couples show Giuliana and Bill, Rancic was a key caretaker while his wife underwent surgery and radiation treatments.
This is the first time they are doing a speech together, Boiser said. They have their own lecture series individually, but this time it is about their life and their life story regarding breast cancer.
After the lecture, the couple is scheduled to sign copies of their new book, I Do, Now What? Doors open to the Marshall Student Center Ballroom at 7:30 p.m.