This was supposed to be Maria Menounos‘ best year yet.
After struggling to conceive for a decade, she and husband Keven Undergaro announced in early February they are expecting a baby girl via surrogate.
That same month, however, Menounos was privately battling Stage 2 pancreatic cancer, she shared with People. Fortunately, doctors successfully removed a 3.9-inch tumor along with part of her pancreas, her spleen, a large fibroid and 17 lymph nodes.
“This whole year has been trauma, stress, crisis,” Menounos, who was diagnosed with and was treated for a brain tumor in 2017, told the outlet. “I had that moment where I thought I was a goner—but I’m okay because I caught this early enough.”
Getting to a place of healing wasn’t easy. Over the summer, the 44-year-old began suffering from such severe leg cramps that, as she explained, “I’d scream out loud. I was inconsolable.”
