I recently received a letter from a fan
in Sicklerville, New Jersey whose wife was diagnosed
with breast cancer last year.
Dear Ellen, one year ago, my wife, Diamonique Valentine
was diagnosed with stage III breast cancer
at only 27 years old.
She fought the hardest battle and I
am so grateful to say that she's completed her treatment.
Words cannot describe how proud I am of her.
I would love to celebrate my wife
and I can't think of a better way than coming to your show.
Meeting you would mean the world to us.
We hope to hear from you.
Love, Marcus Valentine.
Well, come on down here you two.
[APPLAUSE]
Oh my God.
Hi.
You can take those off.
We've all been tested.
You can take them off now that you're with me.
So you can breathe.
Hi Diamonique How are you?
Hi.
Hi Marcus.
Thank you so much for the letter.
Thanks for writing and I'm so glad that you're here.
I'm so glad that you're OK.
You were diagnosed a 27 years old.
Man.
That had to be a horrible shock.
Yeah.
Thank you so much.
Wow.
OK.
Yes, I was diagnosed at 27 years old
and it was the most traumatic experience of my life.
I never imagined anything like this could happen to me.
Did all the things right in life.
Don't drink, don't smoke and work out every day.
So it was like--
Doesn't make sense.
Yeah.
It shook me to my core.
Last August, I developed a lump in my breast and by the time
I was able to get things situated on my insurance,
it was October.
And this month last year, I was diagnosed with stage III
aggressive breast cancer.
So I mean, that's what I read, that you felt a lump
and because of the insurance and by the time you finally
were able to get the mammogram, you had stage III cancer.
Yeah.
Like had you gotten it right away--
something's got to change with health care
so that you could have gotten in there right away
and caught that earlier.
Yeah.
I agree.
Marcus, that must have been so hard for her to--
not only are we dealing with a pandemic now,
but you're watching her go through all these treatments.
Yeah.
It was tough at first just us being so young and so early
on in our marriage, we would never
expect to go through anything like this.
And it was painful to watch her go through it,
but was also a blessing to be able to be
with her every step of the way.
Then when COVID hit, having to watch from the outside in,
FaceTime and treatments and doctors appointments.
But just thank God for our journey,
and everything that we've gone through,
we had to do it together.
And to have him there with you by your side
because that's everything.
That's all that matters, really.
Yeah.
So I mean, we got married at a really young age.
So before I met Marcus, I lived a rough life.
Grew up in a rough community and he helped transform me
into a better person and that was just magnified
when I went through treatment.
So you hear different stories about people
who they didn't make it through something traumatic like this.
And for Marcus to see me transform
many ways from hair down my back to completely bald.
So looking like a whole different person
and sometimes I would look at him
and I would tell him like, I'm sorry that we're
going through this.
Like I'm sorry that we didn't plan nothing like this.
He would just say it's not your fault.
Like I'm sorry you have to go through this.
But he was my rock through the whole situation.
I couldn't did it without him.
Oh man, have a sip of water.
[APPLAUSE]
Why don't we take a break and we'll talk so that you can--
because this is a lot for you right now,
but we'll take a break.
We'll be right back.
So you used to own a small business and it was called--
Renewed Nutrition.
Yeah.
And how long did you own that store?
Since 2017 so to 2 and 1/2 years.
2 and 1/2 years and you had to shut down because of COVID.
Not because of COVID.
Oh.
Because of her treatment and everything.
We shut down before.
Yeah.
We just wanted to really focus on her health
and put everything we had into her getting healthy.
And we didn't want to do it, but it
was something we had to do for now so we pushed it
to the side.
But it was all about nutrition.
Yeah.
So we sold healthy smoothies and teas to the community.
And it was a place for us to give nutrition to our city.
- Yeah--
And it was-- go ahead.
Yeah.
And we did a lot of fun things there like fitness classes
and right now we would have been doing like pumpkin carving
in a giving back coat drives.
And we're really involved in our community.
We still are, but just in a different type of way.
So when we were going through treatment,
that love came right back to us.
Everything that we did for our community,
they poured it right back into us.
That is so important right now.
[APPLAUSE]
You can talk about what's happening in the world is--
hopefully, we have to look at the good
that comes out of this pandemic and that we're
focused on helping small businesses, helping community.
Getting more involved, getting to know one another, I mean,
because we're all isolated and going through the same thing.
So hopefully that happens.
I know that ringing the bell is a big thing.
After you finish treatment, you ring a bell, right?
Yes.
All right.
So I reached out to Nature's Bounty.
They make vitamins and supplements
that support your wellness goals and they love that the good
that you're doing to promote health
and wellness to your community.
And they want to supplement that good,
so we have a special bell for you to ring over here.
Take a look.
Let's walk over.
[APPLAUSE]
[LAUGHS]
Oh my God.
That is amazing.
Wow.
All right.
Ring that special bell.
All right.
OK.
[INAUDIBLE] three, two, one.
[BELL RINGING]
[APPLAUSE]
They want to give you $50,000.
Oh my goodness.
Nature's Bounty wants to give you have $50,000.
I want to thank Khloe Kardashian.
I want to thank all of you for watching.
I feel the love in this room.
I send it back to you.
Spread it out in the world out there.
Thank you so much everybody.
If you haven't already, please vote.
Make sure you vote.