Shaina Hurley has revealed that she was diagnosed with cancer during her pregnancy last year.
The former Love Is Blind star welcomed her first child, a son named Yiorgos David, into the world with her husband Christos Lardakis, on February 1 of this year.
However, Shaina has now confessed that, three months into her pregnancy, she was diagnosed with stage two cervical cancer.
Speaking to People, the 34-year-old recalled that she had “no symptoms” and that her diagnosis was initially discovered from a smear test, before she underwent a colposcopy.
"I felt the fear creeping in but I knew then and there, I can't let the enemy take over my mind. I can't go down that dark hole. I had to go into survival mode and tell God, 'I trust you.' I just prayed for the best, at the end of the day,” she recalled.
Shaina’s doctors wanted to perform a cold-knife conization, but Shaina rejected the idea, noting: “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."
They also suggested that the reality star should give birth at 32 weeks. Shaina refused the idea, stating: "I felt it was too early. I took the risk and pushed it to 37-and-a-half weeks and delivered a healthy baby boy."
After giving birth via C-section, doctors took biopsies to update her diagnosis. Worringly, Shaina had a mini-stroke two weeks later.
"I was feeding my son and my hands went numb and then it shot down the left side of my body. My face drooped, I wasn't making sense," she describes.
In the following weeks, she underwent two cold knife conizations, with the first being unsuccessful.
Thankfully, Shaina has confirmed that she is “finally cancer-free” and is “on the other side now”. Shaina and her husband hope to welcome more children, but she added: “We have to wait a year officially from the last surgery, just to make sure my body is okay.”
