A day after being rushed into surgery for what doctors believed to be an infection in her spine, Abby Lee Miller received an even more troubling diagnosis:
She has been diagnosed with cancer.
Specifically, the former Dance Moms host has been diagnosed with Burkitt lymphoma, which is a form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
This is an illness in which cancer starts in one’s B-cells and it can be fatal if left untreated.
But there’s a 90% long-term survival rate for those who catch it and work with their physicians on a treatment plan.
Dr. Hooman M. Melamed, an orthopedic spine surgeon at Cedar Sinai Marina Del Rey Hospital, confirmed this diagnosis to People Magazine.
He’s the same doctor who performed emergency surgery on Miller early Tuesday morning, tell the same publication that the star would have died without it.
He said at the time, however, that Miller’s temporary paralysis was due to an infection.
“It was not an infection, it was a type of a non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma – it’s a type of a cancer,” Dr. Melamed now explains, expounding as follows:
“We’re getting an oncologist involved and we have to figure out what the next steps are as far as chemotherapy or radiation or more spine surgery.
“Depending on the tumor type, depending on the sensitivity of the tumor – it just depends the type but I feel more than yes, she will undergo chemotherapy or radiation.”
Over the weekend, Miller went to the emergency room due to “excruciating neck pain” and weakness in her arm.
Melamed said her her condition deteriorated over the next couple days, prompting a CT scan and a multi-level laminectomy at about 1 a.m. Tuesday.
Miller is now able to move her arms, legs and toes as a result of the procedure.
“If we didn’t do something, she was going to die,” Dr. Melamed previously told People. “Her blood pressure was bottoming out. She was not doing well.”
The controversial reality star quit Dance Moms last March and then spent over eight months as an inmate at FCI Victorville prison in California.
She was sentenced to one year and one day in prison (followed by two years of supervised release) in May of 2017 after she pleaded guilty to the charge of concealing bankruptcy assets and to one count of not reporting an international monetary transaction.
Abby was also fined $ 40,000 and ordered to pay a $ 120,000 judgment.
“Sometimes in life you make mistakes,” Miller wrote on social media in January, adding:
“I trusted the wrong people and didn’t pay any attention to things I should of. I’m more than sorry for the mistakes I have made.
“My world flipped upside down when I had to enter prison. I did so with grace.”
Just a few weeks ago, Miller was transferred at the end of March to the Residential Reentry Center in Long Beach.
This is a facility that provides a structured and supervised environment and it’s where she’ll be given employment counseling, job placement and financial management assistance.
Via various statements and interviews, it’s been evident that Miller will try to sign on for another reality show of some kind after she is a fully free woman.
But now all plans, we presume, must be placed on hold while she takes care of her health.
We wish her the best.