Serena Williams’s husband Alexis Ohanian has revealed he underwent surgery after experiencing a cancer scare.
The 41-year-old Reddit co-founder, who has been married to the tennis champion since 2017, took to Instagram on Thanksgiving (November 28) to share that he had “half” of his thyroid removed. Ohanian posted a selfie from the hospital wearing a blue gown and a hair net, as he detailed the health scare in the caption.
“After tracking some suspicious nodules on my thyroid for the last four years, I recently got half of it surgically removed,” he began.
The entrepreneur — who shares daughters Alexis Olympia, seven, and Adira River, one, with Williams — explained that a recent biopsy revealed the nodules would “very likely turn cancerous,” so he underwent the surgery out of an abundance of caution.
Ohanian said his mother had breast cancer around his same age, and “ultimately died from brain cancer a decade or so later.”
“I wasn’t gonna take any chances; the surgery was smooth and I’m extra grateful this Thanksgiving because I got the call this morning that my now-removed-half-of-thyroid was indeed full of some gnarly nodules that were very likely to become cancerous,” he continued.
Ohanian said the “worst part” about his recovery has been not being able to lift weights for two weeks. However, he was recently able to take his daughters to Disney World theme park in Orlando, Florida, as he shared two photos from their family trip.
“To my fellow, men — make those doctor’s appointments — especially if y’all are dads. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone,” he concluded the post.
Ohanian’s cancer scare comes just four months after he revealed his “surprising” Lyme disease diagnosis back in July.
“Doing a full battery of health scans, tests, etc, and found out I have lyme disease,” he wrote in a series of posts on his X/Twitter account. “Wild. No symptoms, thankfully, but gonna treat.”
He shared the results of his scans, as he continued: “Good cholesterol is too low. Bad cholesterol is just OK. Gotta work on that. On the plus-side: 822 ng/dL total + 162 ng/dL free testosterone.”
The tech mogul recalled his previous experience with the illness, which is described by the Mayo Clinic as one usually caused by the bite of a tick carrying borrelia bacteria.
“I’ve got a loved one who had it a few years back, showed tons [of] symptoms etc and just couldn’t figure it out until they tested him for it and then found it (treated it successfully, too),” he said.
“I spend so little time in the wilderness/northeast this was quite a surprise. Anyway, gonna grab some antibiotics — can’t keep me down, tick!”
