“Baywatch” alum Nicole Eggert revealed she has been diagnosed with breast cancer.
In an exclusive interview with People, Eggert, 51, explained what led to her stage 2 cribriform carcinoma breast cancer diagnosis at the beginning of December 2023.
She said she called her doctor in October after feeling a lump in her left breast which resulted in “terrible pain” and noticed drastic weight gain within three months. However, the actress chalked it up to menopause symptoms.
“It really was throbbing and hurting,” Eggert explained. “I immediately went to my general practitioner and she told me I had to immediately go get it looked at.”
She added, “But the problem was I just couldn’t get an appointment. Everything was booked. So I had to wait until the end of November to get it done.”
After undergoing three biopsies and a discovery mammogram, her pathology report came back positive for cancer.
During the interview, the actress told People how she’s been coping with the life-changing news.
“This journey’s been rough for me. This hasn’t been a breezy sale through life,” Eggert, who also starred in “Charles in Charge,” confessed.
However, she said consistently reading “inspirational quotes and corny stuff” gets her “through.”
Furthermore, she said she is waiting for her oncologist to tell her when she can start radiation and chemotherapy and is unsure if the cancer has spread throughout her body. Surgery will also be required to remove the cancer.
“I can definitely feel it. It’s there. It needs to be taken out,” she said of the lump in her breast.
Eggert continued, “So it’s just a matter of do I have to do treatment before the surgery or can they perform the surgery and then I do the treatment after.”
She also spoke about the anxiety she feels about having cancer.
“I have panics where I’m like, just get this out of me. You sit there and it’s in you and you’re like, every second that passes and it’s inside of me. It’s growing, and you’re just like, you just want it out,” she shared.
Eggert, who is a single mom of two, expressed her “biggest fear” of not being around for her daughters, Dilyn, 25, and Keegan, 12.
“[Dilyn’s] an adult, but I have a 12-year-old at home where I’m the only caregiver. I have no family. I have nothing,” she said.
Additionally, she recalled the look of “horror” on her daughter Keegan’s face when she told her she had cancer.
“It immediately made me realize, there’s just no succumbing to this. This is something I have to get through,” she shared, adding, “This is something that I have to beat. She needs me more than anything and anybody.”
A GoFundMe page has been created by one of Eggert’s friends, Mindy Molinary, following her diagnosis to help with medical expenses.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women in the United States, except for skin cancers. According to the National Cancer Institute, early detection through mammograms allows treatment to start sooner and can decrease the likelihood of it spreading, People reported.
