If you've been following the career of Dance Moms star Abby Lee Miller, you know her life has hit a rough patch.
After a headline-grabbing stint behind bars, Miller was hoping to restart her life while staying at a halfway house.
But an emergency surgery in April changed everything.
Now, Miller is giving her fans a glimpse inside he difficult battle against aggressive cancer.
"If we didn't do something, she was going to die."
The first sign that something was wrong with Miller came when she experienced "excruciating" neck and back pain, with weakness in her arm.
The dance coach and reality star was rushed to a hospital, where doctors found what looked like an infection on Miller's spine.
As Miller's doctor, Hooman Melamaed of the Cedar Sinai Marina de Rey Hospital, said at the time, "If we didn't do something, she was going to die."
"In the span of 24 hours," he explained, "which was something that I have not seen, her condition rapidly deteriorated. She was completely paralyzed from the neck down."
Miller had surgery to remove parts of her vertebrae, but doctors realized it was not an infection causing her symptoms, but cancer.
Miller was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma called Burkitt lymphoma, and has been fighting to stay alive ever since.
"Never take anything in this world for granted!"
Burkitt lymphoma is a rare but aggressive cancer strain that attacks white blood cells.
It is known for killing most patients in just weeks, so Miller needed immediate and serious treatment.
As she told her fans on Instagram, "never take anything in this world for granted!"
"It can all change so suddenly!"
In the past three months, Miller has been through five rounds of chemotherapy, and another "quick little emergency surgery" on her back.
Miller has been sharing every step of her painstaking recovery on social media, including videos of herself in rehab and nasty pictures of her surgery scars.
"I had 52 staples perfectly aligned and now a bunch of crazy stitches are holding my neck & lumbar region together!" she wrote in one caption.
Miller even shared a photo of herself tanning in her new motorized wheelchair. At least her sense of humor is still as healthy as ever!
Planning A Return To TV
While most people would be focusing on rest and rehabilitation, Miller is actually already hard at work on a new season of Dance Moms.
Recent hospital visits from former Dance Moms competitors Maesi Caes and Elliana Walmsley convinced some fans that Miller was rejoining the show.
Now, we know for sure that she will be.
Miller resigned from Dance Moms in 2017, complaining that she was being "manipulated" and "disrespected" by the show's producers.
But production for season eight of the hit reality show has already started, and the Lifetime network has confirmed that Miller is involved in casting the series.
The reality star has already shared that she's ready to get out of her hospital bed and get back to work.
"I'm on a tight schedule; shooting two projects and I need to get out of here and on with my life!" she said.
We're wishing Miller a speedy recovery!
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[H/T: People]
