biopsy upon her return to the States, she spent three weeks in a war zone with a sense of dread in the back of mind — an experience that ultimately prepared her to confront whatever personal news was waiting at home.
“Seeing the kind of suffering going on where I was and seeing people still live through the worst thing that has ever happened to them with grace and kindness, I was blown away by their resilience,” Sidner, 51, tells PEOPLE. “In some weird way, it helped me with my own perspective on what I am going to be facing.”
Sidner, who continues to serve as CNN’s senior national correspondent and anchors the morning edition of CNN News Central, has not missed a day of work since her diagnosis, even appearing on the 17th Annual CNN Heroes red carpet on Dec. 10 — two days after she began chemotherapy — and hosting a live New Year’s Eve special until 2 a.m.
“I am fatigued and I am slower, and I have to be more thoughtful about how I take care of myself,” she admits, but now nearing the end of her first cycle of chemo, she’s not willing to put her life on hold.