Less than a month after popular Jacksonville TV news anchor Bruce Hamilton announced that he was being treated for “an aggressive and progressive form of cancer,” another local news anchor said that she, too, was recently diagnosed with cancer.
“After doing Buddy Check all these years, I never dreamed I’d be saying this, but I have been diagnosed with breast cancer myself,” First Coast News anchor Jeannie Blaylock told viewers during the station’s 6 p.m. newscast on March 12.
“Folks, Buddy Check 12 has saved my life,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “I have surgery a week from today.
“Am I nervous? Yes, you can tell,” she continued. “It’s kind of a jolt to hear you have cancer, and I know a lot of you can relate to that. But I have caught it early. It’s itty bitty. It’s stage zero.
“My doctors at MD Anderson tell me I couldn’t have caught it any earlier. So now my prayer is, ‘Lord, use me now to save more lives,’” she told viewers, encouraging them to reach out to her. “… I’d love to have your advice, your encouragement.”
Wearing a pink dress, Blaylock revealed the diagnosis on Buddy Check 12 day, the day each month that she reminds viewers to do breast self-exams and to check in on their friends to do the same.
Blaylock launched the Buddy Check 12 program with Baptist Health more than 30 years ago following the death of her best friend at just age 29.
Flanking her in an area of the studio bathed in pink lighting, First Coast News co-anchors Heather Crawford and Jessica Clark and chief meteorologist Lewis Turner also wore pink to support Buddy Check 12 — and to support Blaylock.
Clark said that when Blaylock revealed her diagnosis to First Coast News staff two weeks ago, it reminded her to schedule her annual mammogram.
Blaylock’s news comes nearly a month after longtime News4Jax ‘Morning Show’ anchor Bruce Hamilton told viewers about his diagnosis.
“I have some news I want to share with you, because over the next several months I may be gone from the news desk and newsroom from time to time,” Hamilton, 70, told viewers. “Recently, I was diagnosed with an aggressive and progressive form of cancer. The encouraging news from my very capable doctor with Cancer Specialists of North Florida is that the survivability rate and cure rate are very high.
“I intend to fight. I intend to win,” he said.
Earlier this week, Hamilton appeared on set with a shaved head after multiple rounds of chemotherapy.
Blaylock marks her 40th year at First Coast News this month.
In March 1985, Blaylock joined WTLV TV-12 as a weekend anchor and general assignment reporter for the city’s then-ABC affiliate, according to previous Times-Union reporting. (The station returned to the NBC affiliate family in 1988 after 8 years. And in April 2000, the news operations of WTLV and ABC affiliate WJXX TV-25 merged under the First Coast News banner.)
Then in April 1987, Blaylock anchored the station’s new 11:30 a.m. newscast, 12 Before Noon. And a year later, in August 1988, Blaylock, along with co-anchor Mark Walton (and Steve Smith with weather), launched the city’s first 5:30 p.m. newscast.
Five years later, Blaylock partnered with Donna Deegan at 5:30 and joined the 6 p.m. newscast with Lee Webb after Marcia Ladendorff’s departure after seven years behind the anchor desk.
Over the last three decades, she’s been a steady presence on the station’s evening newscasts, alongside former news anchors Steve Abrams, Ken Amaro, Alan Gionet and Shannon Ogden and current anchors Heather Crawford and Anthony Austin.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: ‘Buddy Check 12 has saved my life’: FCN anchor reveals cancer diagnosis
Reporting by Gary T. Mills, Jacksonville Florida Times-Union / Florida Times-Union
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