Love Is Blind star Shaina Hurley has revealed she was diagnosed with cancer when she was three months pregnant.
The TV personality, 34, who is now a mom to son Yiorgos, seven months, with husband Christos Lardakis, found out she had stage 2 cervical cancer after a routine pap smear came back with abnormal results.
HURLEY’S DECISION
Hurley refused a procedure which would ‘most likely’ cause a miscarriage and chemotherapy – despite doctors’ wishes. She also refused to deliver her son early at 32 weeks and held on until 37.5 weeks.
She told People: ‘I had no symptoms. But later, the doctor called me and said the pap smear results had come back as abnormal and they needed to get me in for a colposcopy.
WHAT DOCTORS SAY
Doctors advised for her to undergo a cold-knife conization – which involved removing tissue from the cervix, with Hurley saying: ‘The problem is, I was pregnant. [The] cervix is what holds pregnancy. I was at just around three months and so I would most likely lose the baby. At that point, I just couldn’t risk it.’
Hurley was advised to undergo laparoscopic surgery to ensure the cancer had not spread to the lymph nodes – after which doctors recommended chemotherapy.
Hurley said she refused this treatment as the disease had not spread and she had no symptoms.
Doctors wanted to deliver baby Yiorgos at 32 weeks so they could see if the cancer had spread – but Hurley refused and ‘pushed it’ to 37.5 weeks. Yiorgos was born healthy via C-section at this gestation.
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WHAT HER HUSBAND THINK
The star said her decision to decline treatment had caused ‘battles’ between her and her husband – saying: ‘He wanted the baby but he would also say, “Shaina, I don’t want to lose my wife. I want you to be here to raise the baby.”‘
She said her ‘faith and strong will’ kicked in – and due to suffering a miscarriage before her son – ‘nothing was going to stop me’ from continuing with a healthy pregnancy.
Two weeks after giving birth in February, she suffered a mini-stroke (TIA) which caused her face to droop and her hands to become numb.
