Cancer Fight in Sin City
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KSNV Anchor Michelle Velez took to social media to say that she has a rare form of cancer and is going through treatment.
This was her post to IG:
I’m not exactly sure how to do this so I’m just going to give it to you straight. As many of you know I have been having some health issues the past few months. Honestly, we didn’t exactly know what was wrong until now. Last week, I was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer that was caused by an abnormal pregnancy. It’s extremely complicated so I’ll try to make it as easy to understand as possible. Before I do - I want you to know that my kind of cancer is treatable. We have every reason to believe I will recover free and clear - Just getting to that point is going to be tough. What I had was called a molar pregnancy. It’s a pregnancy that is not viable - meaning a fetus never formed -but instead of miscarrying, the pregnancy continued to grow and produced invasive placental tissue. Since the placenta is still there, the body mimics a pregnancy and spikes the pregnancy hormone (HCG) to astronomical levels. Essentially it was as if I was pregnant with 5 babies at once. It made me extremely sick and caused excessive bleeding. Normally this can be treated with a surgical procedure to clear the tissue and then we just monitor the HCG levels until they reach zero. However.. In some very rare cases that tissue can turn into cancer.. and spread to other organs in the body. That is what happened to me. No good reason, just unfortunate dumb luck. .
Again, The great news is this type of cancer is treatable and my doctors have every reason to believe I will be free and clear at the end of this. The bad news is I have to go through aggressive chemo to kill it. Yes I will probably lose my hair and experience other side effects of chemo. I have already made it through my first two treatments this week. Total number of rounds all depends on how long it takes the HCG levels to get to zero.
I can’t really put into words what it is like to find out you have cancer.. devastating.. shocking and terrifying for starters - but there’s so much more to this I never understood. I plan to be as open and transparent about this journey as I can - because it’s the only way I know how to be.
She followed up with a video from the hospital:
FTVLive wants to wish Michelle well and look forward to seeing her back on the air soon.
