Deborah Norville Out Of Surgery After Thyroid Cancer Diagnosis
NEW YORK (CBSNews) - A member of the CBS family is recovering from cancer surgery.
"Inside Edition" anchor Deborah Norville is out of surgery to remove a thyroid nodule from her neck.
"Out of surgery. Everything went great. Here with my best friend," Norville's assistant posted to her Twitter account Tuesday afternoon.
In a video message Monday, Norville said it was thanks to one viewer's sharp eye that she went to her doctor in the first place.
"We live in a world of 'see something, say something,' and I'm really glad we do," she said in the clip posted on "Inside Edition"'s YouTube channel. "A long time ago, an 'Inside Edition' viewer reached out to say she'd seen something on my neck. It was a lump."
The anchor said she hadn't noticed the lump before, but went to her doctor to get it checked. While it wasn't anything at the time, she continued to get it looked at over the years.
"For years, it was nothing. Until recently," she said, "It was something."
Norville said her doctors informed her that it is a "very localized form of cancer," which she will be having surgery to remove Tuesday. She explained she would not be undergoing chemotherapy, and was told she would not be treated with radiation, but she would "be away for a bit."
In her absence, Norville said "Inside Edition" correspondent and weekend anchor Diane McInerney will be "holding down the fort."
The anchor finished the minute-long personal video by asking viewers for their support: "If you believe in prayer, please say one for me and for my surgeon and I thank you very much ... I'll be away for a bit, but I do hope you'll tune in to 'Inside Edition' every day. Until then, thanks for watching."
The two-time Emmy-winning anchor joined the show in 1995 from CBS News, where she was an anchor and a correspondent, according to her biography.
This isn't the first time an eagle-eyed viewer has spotted a lump on someone on television. In 2013, TV personality Tarek El Moussa found out he had a thyroid cancer after a viewer spotted a lump on his neck.
"If it wasn't for TV and her noticing this huge lump on my neck, I would still be moving forward in my life with cancer in my body, and probably never have done anything about it," he said.
He's now cancer free.
"I guess you get used to the way you look in the mirror, you don't notice small changes," said Dr. Gady Har-El, chief of head and neck surgical oncology at Lenox Hill Hospital.
Dr. Har-El said nodules can change in size slowly, so neither you nor your family can see or feel it.
"You lift up your chin, then the viewer sees the asymmetry between side and sides," he said.
He also adds that thyroid nodules are extremely common and most them he says have no clinically significant meaning. The best way to keep yourself aware and healthy is to not skip your general physical, he says.
"It's extremely important and many of the issues that we find in the head and neck, including the thyroid, is found during physical examination," he said.
Dr. Har-El adds a lot of doctors offices now have ultrasound right there, so they can figure these things out even sooner.
Norville says she'll be out for a bit.
