Nicole Eggert has provided a health update almost one year after first announcing her breast cancer diagnosis.
The Baywatch alum recently posted a video on Instagram where she discussed her latest hospital appointment. “OK so I just got out of my CT scan, mapping — as they call it — for my radiation treatment, and when they said they were gonna tattoo me, I didn’t realize it was actual, real tattoos, so I was tatted!” the video began.
She then started to cry as she realized just how permanent the tattoo would be. “And it’s minor, it’s nothing but dots, but boy, every step of this process is never gonna let you forget it, there’s just always going to be a constant reminder,” Eggert continued.
“So yeah, I have tattoos. My mom’s gonna be really proud of my neck tattoo, but that’s OK, that’s OK.”
“And the people were wonderful and still not looking forward to it, whatsoever, but I got through that part and the rest is gonna have to just be me working on myself and how I’m gonna get through it and ignore these new tattoos that I have.”
The Charles in Charge star also made an Instagram video prior to her appointment, where she expressed her concerns about receiving radiation and what the effects of the procedure might look like.
“They’re gonna do CT scans and they call it imaging and tattooing of my organs, it’s so that when they shoot the radiation into me, they can hopefully miss most of the vital organs,” she said.
“They’ll hit some of them they’ve said to a degree, but hopefully not to a harmful degree,” Eggert continued.
“What I’m struggling with is I know the damage that radiation does, my father had it on his brain, he had tumors in his brain, and after the first treatment, he was not the same person anymore.”
Eggert first shared her breast cancer diagnosis in an interview with People. Originally, the actress said she experienced symptoms such as gaining 25 pounds in three months in addition to “terrible pain” in her left breast, and assumed it was nothing serious and only part of menopause.
Eggert didn’t go to the doctor until she felt a lump in the same breast. “It really was throbbing and hurting,” she told the outlet at the time.
After seeing her doctor and being told to have the lump looked at further, Eggert received her diagnosis after a mammogram and three biopsies.
Although Eggert does have a family history of cancer, with her father having skin cancer and her mother having colon cancer, she explained that her “biggest fear” with this diagnosis is not being around for her two daughters, 13-year-old Keegan and 26-year-old Dilyn.
“[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, pointing out “the horror” on Keegan’s face when telling her about the diagnosis. “It immediately made me realize, there’s just no succumbing to this. This is something I have to get through. This is something that I have to beat. She needs me more than anything and anybody.”
