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Jill Martin spoke to PEOPLE on Wednesday, Oct. 1, during the Today show’s “Pink Plaza” event in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness MonthMartin was diagnosed with an aggressive form of stage 2b breast cancer in 2023Now cancer-free, Martin is passionate about genetic testing, as the screening can help save lives

Sitting in a sea of pink, surrounded by hundreds of Today viewers — numerous breast cancer survivors among them — Jill Martin says she can’t help but feel grateful.

The NBC morning show contributor finds herself using that word over and over again as she talks, laughing lightly because she says she doesn’t want to sound redundant. Still, that one word really does encapsulate how she feels.

“I’ve been through such hell for the past two years that the only way for me to move forward is to turn pain into purpose. And so to have a platform like the Today Show to be able to amplify genetic testing, to be able to use my platform to spread awareness about a test that saved my life? I wouldn’t be sitting here today if not,” she tells PEOPLE amid the show’s “Pink Plaza” event on the first day of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

“Honestly, it’s hard for me to say that, but had I not done that spit test, I would not have been here today. So every day to me is such a gift,” she adds. “I woke up today and thought, ‘How grateful am I that I get to go to a place that supports a message that I feel like is higher than me and why I was given cancer?’ That is my purpose.”

Martin was diagnosed with aggressive stage 2b breast cancer in 2023. Despite a clean mammogram and sonogram months earlier, results from a genetic test revealed that Martin had inherited the BRCA2 mutation – not from her mother, who is a breast cancer survivor herself, but from her father’s side of the family.

It was during pre-operative MRI ahead of the double mastectomy Martin had agreed to that she learned she already had a 1- to 2-inch cancerous mass in her left breast.

“Everyone’s been through some level of trauma, and I think you’re defined by how you deal with trauma and then the period where you come back [from it],” Martin, who is cancer-free, says now. “That small period of time to me is where your integrity comes from.”

In deciding to share her journey with Today viewers every step of the way, she in turn was opening herself up to the world in her most vulnerable moment. She never hesitated.

“I’ve been here [at Today] for almost 20 years, and it’s the good and the bad we share. And I just felt like it was a disservice to our viewers to [only] share all the good things when all the happy happens,” Martin says. “And then the bigger thing was when my surgeon said to me, ‘Well, what if something happens?’ And I said, ‘Then even more so, I need to go and tell the story.’ ”

Jill Martin in November 2024.

Jamie McCarthy/Getty 

Dr. Matt Goldstein is the CEO of Jscreen, the company that is providing the genetic testing kits for Today viewers who signed up to receive one.

“To partner with Jill Martin on the Today show is obviously a huge deal for us. And I think most importantly, it’s an opportunity to raise awareness around how powerful this intervention is and to ensure that people know it’s easy and that we can provide a really, really high-quality service to make sure that they’re supported all the way through,” he says, emphasizing that the process is actually quite simple.

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JScreen also offers a virtual appointment with a genetic counselor after the results are ready.

“If you sign up at JScreen.org, a kit comes in the mail to your house. You can sit on your couch. All you have to do is spit in a tube,” Goldstein says. “It’s a saliva sample. [We] can get enough DNA from your saliva to run the sequencing panel, which is pretty cool. We test for a number of different mutations that give you risk for a number of different cancers, and that information can save your life.”