E! News co-anchor Maria Menounos has spent almost a year caring for her mother, who has stage 4 brain cancer.
But on top of her mother’s tragic cancer diagnosis, Menounos recently learned she herself had a golf-ball-size brain tumor.
Speaking to PEOPLE in an exclusive interview, Menounos explained that the symptoms began in February.
“I’d been getting lightheaded on set and having headaches,” she recounted. “My speech had gotten slurred and I was having difficulty reading the teleprompter.”
When an MRI confirmed that a meningioma brain tumor was pushing on her facial nerves, Menounos was initially in disbelief.
“I didn’t cry. I actually laughed,” she said. “It’s so surreal and crazy and unbelievable that my mom has a brain tumor—and now I have one too?”
During surgery, 99.9 percent of the tumour (which was luckily benign) was removed. But her surgeon says there’s “a six to seven percent chance that we’ll see it come back,” Menounos explained “But I’ll take those odds any day.”
The Sirius XM radio continued: “We’re caretakers as women and we put ourselves last.
“I tell people all the time if your car is making a weird noise, you take it to the mechanic. How come when our body is making weird noises, we ignore it? I’m so lucky that I went to the doctor and raised the alarm.”
According to ABC News, Menounos has stepped down as an E! News anchor while her mother continues her cancer battle.
PEOPLE also reports that Menounos will continue her IVF plans with fiancé Keven Undergaro and that the couple still “want to have a family” despite her health scare.
