Sandra Lee has revealed she has breast cancer.

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The Food Network chef, 48, revealed on Good Morning America the cancer was detected when she underwent a routine mammogram, and the news shook her world.

"It was March 27 and I was shooting People's 'Most Beautiful,' and I walked off set, and 20 minutes later, my doctor called and told me I have breast cancer," Lee said in tears as she spoke with GMA co-host Robin Roberts, who suffered and beat breast cancer herself.

"I just was still. I didn't even cry. I was stunned. And that's just, you know, how fast life turns. It turns on a dime."

Doctors apparently caught Lee's cancer early, so it has not spread.

"When the lumpectomy was done, they did not have clean margins, and so I went back to my radiologist, and she said, 'Well, here's the deal. You're going to have to have six to eight weeks of radiation every day. You know what that is. So we suggest that you have a mastectomy,'" Lee explained.

"And so I said, 'Okay, if I'm going to have a mastectomy, am I supposed to just get one done?' Both the radiologist and the doctor said, 'You're a ticking time bomb... You need -- I would just get them both done.'"

Lee's family is behind her in this struggle as well as New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, her boyfriend of 10 years.

"After my sister, [Andrew] was my next call. I think he was as stunned as I was. He's being extremely supportive. He's going to be in the operating room with me. But you know, there's two ways that cancer beats you up. It beats up your body and it beats you up emotionally. I wasn't going to let it rob me of one day of happiness," Lee insisted.

"My first focus is just to get the surgery done and recover. And then after that, I'm really going to be all over my siblings and my nieces to make sure they get tested. I don't care if my niece is only 23... [Doctors] don't even recommend that women have their first mammogram until they're 50."

But Lee acknowledged that if she would've waited to receive a mammogram for a couple more years, she probably wouldn't be here today.

"They say there's an incredible amount of women in their 20's and 30's being diagnosed, and they're telling these girls to wait? I don't know who, in good conscience, could even do that... Girls just have to know. I don't want women to wait and that's why I'm talking," she told Roberts.

Lee was diagnosed with DCIS -- ductal carcinoma in situ -- a common noninvasive cancer contained within the milk ducts that can become invasive over time if left untreated, according to People. Lee also reportedly tested negative for the genes that increase the risk of breast and ovarian cancer.

Lee's Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee show premiered on the Food Network in 2003. Her second series on the network, Sandra's Money Saving Meals, debuted in May 2009.
About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski

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