Virginia Moore, sign language interpreter for Gov. Andy Beshear, says she is cancer free

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Less than a month after being diagnosed with uterine cancer, Virginia Moore said she is cancer free.

Moore, who has taken some time off from being Gov. Andy Beshear's sign language interpreter since the diagnosis, announced her good news via video message during the governor's COVID-19 pandemic briefing Wednesday.

A Louisville native, Moore said her doctors at U of L Health's James Graham Brown Cancer Center were able to remove all of the cancer and will monitor her health for the next five years to make sure it doesn't return. She again urged people across the commonwealth to be proactive in getting mammograms and women to get pap smears.

"If I had waited just a little bit longer, I would definitely be in treatment," she said. "Because it was one of the largest tumors they saw and it was invasive but just shy of having to have treatment."

Moore said she is excited to rejoin Beshear and sign his pandemic briefings. Since the outset of the pandemic, Moore has used her signing skills to communicate the governor's message to more than 700,000 deaf and hard-of-hearing people in the commonwealth.

"That is great news," Beshear said after Moore's video message ended. "We're looking so forward to having Virginia back. We're so glad that she's doing well."

To conclude her video message, Moore thanked Kentuckians for their outpouring of support since her diagnosis and encouraged them to keep the kindness going toward one another and follow health guidelines to combat the ongoing pandemic.

"If I could thank each and every one of you, I would. Your kindness that you showed me lifted me up and gave me the strength to go through this," Moore said. "... Let's take that kindness, that support, and let's give it to everyone out there that's battling the coronavirus."

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