Christopher Reeve’s son Will Reeve reveals cancer diagnosis and the full-circle moment with late mom Dana

Christopher Reeve’s son is opening up about one of the biggest challenges of his life. Will Reeve, 34, has revealed he was diagnosed with a rare form of testicular cancer. 

Will shared the news in an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, revealing that he was diagnosed last spring with testicular cancer that had spread to the lymph nodes in his abdomen. The news completely took him by surprise. 

“I was raised to share one’s struggles if, in doing so, that might help others,” he said, referencing to his parents, Christopher and Dana Reeve, who, after Christopher experienced a horse riding accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down, spent the rest of their lives advocating for spinal-cord-injury awareness. 

Will is currently cancer-free and was inspired by his parents to share his story with the world. 

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Will is a journalist and a correspondent for ABC News. “I have felt so loved and supported and rooted for by family, friends and strangers alike for my entire life,” he said. “And that’s a big part of why I wanted to speak about this. I’m going to be fine. But this was a heck of a chapter.” 

Will revealed that he noticed a lump in one of his testicles, inspiring him to schedule an ultrasound. It resulted in an orchiectomy and in the discovery that he had embryonal carcinoma, an aggressive form of the disease. Will had to go undergo a six-hour surgery to remove lymph nodes in his abdomen and two rounds of chemotherapy. 

Will’s painful family history

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Christopher Reeve died in 2004, at the age of 52. Dana Reeve died two years later, from lung cancer. She was 44 years old. 

Will was 14 years old. “The irony is not lost on me that 20 years after my mom died of lung cancer at Memorial Sloan Kettering, there I was in the same building getting treated for cancer,” he said. 

“I was experiencing life as each of my parents at the same time. Because I was a cancer patient at Memorial Sloan Kettering, I was getting a firsthand experience of what my mother went through. Simultaneously, I was learning more about what it was like to be my dad in the final nine years of his life, where he had my mom and our family taking care of him. And there I was with my wife, who, since the day I met her, has reminded me in so many ways of my mom, now playing the role of wife and caregiver.”

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