We all have those celebrity couples that if they broke up, we would have to cross the word “love” out of our dictionaries. Like Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick – I’d take it as a personal insult if one ever hurt the other. Another couple I hold in this regard is Harry Connick, Jr. and his wife, Jill Goodacre Connick. They’ve been married for 23 years and have three daughters: Georgia, 21, Kate, 20, and Charlotte, 15. Prior to marrying Harry, Jill was one of the biggest Victoria Secret models on the scene. Whenever I hear her name, I immediately picture her in the “bank vestibule” with Chandler on Friends as he tries to negotiate the pen on the chain. Following her marriage to Harry, Jill stepped back from the spotlight some but not completely. In the last few years, though, we really haven’t seen much of her at all. It turns out that was intentional on her part because Jill has been battling breast cancer. After getting back a clear mammogram, a sonogram detected an abnormality that turned out to be Stage 1 invasive ductal carcinoma, which she treated through surgeries and radiation. Because Jill has been cancer free for five years, the family is just now feeling confident enough to speak out about her ordeal in hopes of raising awareness.

In October 2012, the multiplatinum recording artist, host of the daytime talk show Harry and actor’s wife, Jill Goodacre, had a routine annual mammogram that came back clear.

“They said, ‘Okay, looks good. Since you have dense breasts, just go across the hall for your sonogram,’ ” Goodacre, 53, tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. But during the sonogram, something was detected. After undergoing a biopsy, Goodacre received the harrowing news — during breast cancer awareness month — that she had Stage 1 invasive ductal carcinoma and would need to immediately undergo a lumpectomy, followed by radiation.

“I was scared I was going to lose her, absolutely,” says Connick Jr., 50, whose mother died of ovarian cancer when he was 13. “I wasn’t going to let her see that, but I was. I know from losing my mom that the worst can happen. She’s my best friend, and I really don’t know what I would do without her.”

“The lumpectomy didn’t come back with clean margins,” she explains. Pathology tests showed she also had extensive ductal carcinoma in situ, a less invasive form of the disease. “So I had to go in for a second surgery the very next day. And then radiation absolutely wiped me out. And since then there’s been the Tamoxifen, which I’ve now been taking for five years.”

Tamoxifen, an estrogen modulator taken in pill form that helps prevent the development of hormone receptor-positive breast cancers, can have difficult side effects, including weight gain, which Goodacre — a former Victoria’s Secret model — has admittedly struggled with.

“I’ve always been a pretty fit person, and so to be just rounder and heavier and not to really be able to do much about it — that’s been hard. It’s taken a lot out of my self-confidence,” she says.

“It’s not something that’s just going to go away like it never happened,” adds Goodacre. “I’ll always be a little nervous, always having to get checked, always hoping it doesn’t come back.”

[From People]

I’ve been in Harry’s shoes of having lived through the worst-case scenario and then having to go through it yet again. One of my mother’s cancers came back right on the radiation line and was much more problematic the second time. Although it sounds horrendous, I’m glad they acted when the margins didn’t come back clean. According to Jill, one of the hardest things she had to endure was telling their daughters about her diagnosis. As a daughter who has heard these kinds of diagnoses, I know how hard it is to hear it. The whole ordeal sounds so sad.

This is not the first I’ve heard of weight gain as a side effect. Obviously, she looked after her health foremost and I completely empathize with her struggle of not having any control over her weight. Harry also noted that it was really hard for Jill even though it was all a part of the cancer treatment, but then added “even though she will always be the most beautiful woman in the world,” which may be cheesy, but still made me “aaaaaw.” I am happy to know that Jill is breathing a little easier now that she is five years in. I appreciate the family sharing what is clearly a very personal story for the benefit of others, especially about how mammograms don’t catch everything. I’m glad Jill remains healthy and that Harry didn’t lose another loved one to cancer. And I am glad to hear they are still so solid as a family, because they have to stay in love and together forever – for me.

Embed from Getty Images

Photo credit: WENN Photos and Getty Images