“Baywatch” actress Nicole Eggert is definitely thinking of her children as she shares her breast cancer diagnosis with the world. They are the reason she has given herself no other option than to survive.
“I have a 12-year-old at home where I’m the only caregiver. I have no family. I have nothing,” she admitted in an interview with People magazine. “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,” she said of daughter Keegan, 12. Her other daughter, Dilyn, is 25.
“My fear is that my everyday hustle, everything that I do to keep everything going is going to come to a screeching halt when I’m not feeling well or I’m sick or I’m in the hospital or whatever is going on,” she said, noting that as a single mother, finances have been a concern. “It’s just so overwhelming, and I’m just doing everything I can not to spiral. At night when I lay down, I panic because I’m like, well, who’s going to cover all the bills? Who’s going to do all of this?”
Nicole Eggert learned she had stage 2 cribriform carcinoma breast cancer in December. (Getty Images)
Eggert, 51, initially felt pain in her breast and gained 25 pounds within three months. Believing them to be symptoms of menopause, she was surprised to locate a lump during a self-exam in October. “It really was throbbing and hurting,” she explained. “I immediately went to my general practitioner and she told me I had to immediately go get it looked at. 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.”
Results later showed that she had stage 2 cribriform carcinoma breast cancer. Both of Eggert’s parents had cancer.
Nicole Eggert first attributed her symptoms to menopause before conducting a self-exam and finding a lump. (Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images)
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“I can definitely feel it,” the “Charles in Charge” star added. “It’s there. It needs to be taken out. 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.”
Eggert says she is waiting to see when she can begin both chemotherapy and radiation, adding she does not know if the cancer has metastasized. “I have panics where I’m like, just get this out of me,” she told People about her condition. “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.”
A representative for Eggert did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for further comment.
Nicole Eggert starred alongside Pamela Anderson on “Baywatch.” (Fotos International/Getty Images)
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“This journey’s been rough for me. This hasn’t been a breezy sale through life,” she explained, adding that she is trying to have a positive mindset. “I always read inspirational quotes and corny stuff, but it gets me through.”
A friend created a GoFundMe page on her behalf, a gesture Eggert is “really appreciative” of. “I absolutely 100% want to start a non-profit for other single parents such as myself, who don’t have any family, don’t have anybody to turn to,” she shared. “They take on all this by themselves because they love their kids so much, but when something happens to them, then what?”
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“I’ve gotten such an outpouring of love and it makes you feel so good. It changes your whole day and other people just don’t have that,” Eggert noted. “So I really want to figure out a way to give back to other parents that are in my situation that aren’t as fortunate.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, breast cancer is the second most common cancer found in women across the United States.
