LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Former E! News correspondent Maria Menounos flaunted her surgery scars on a social media post following her gutsy battle with pancreatic cancer. The 45-year-old journalist posted a selfie on Instagram on Sunday, June 9, in which she oozed in a brown two-piece and pridefully displayed the surgery lesions on her stomach.
Maria, who was also a TV correspondent for Today and Access Hollywood, told People Magazine earlier this year that she had been secretly battling stage 2 of the deadly disease. Much to the delight of her admirers, she underwent successful surgery after being diagnosed in January to remove a 3.9-cm tumor.
'I am grateful for the strength god blessed me with to get through'
“I look back on surgery earlier this year and am grateful for the strength god blessed me with to get through and of course all of the beautiful humans that he sent to help me too!” she captioned the photo. “Now I see the scars that I sunscreen up carefully to protect and I smile," she added.
'Those scars are sexy lady!!'
Soon after uploading the photo, her followers showered love and praised her for sharing her journey. “Scars of a champion!” one person wrote, while another user commented, " “Your scars are now badges of honor!”. One user echoed, "God bless you! You help people like me were there is no cure for autoimmune disease" while another user wrote, "Glad you wear your battle scars proudly, as do I. You look beautiful!" "Those scars are sexy lady!!", opined one of her followers.
Menounos encouraged others to find answers to their health problems
"I need people to know there are places they can go to catch things early," she told the media outlet in February. "You can't let fear get in the way. I had that moment where I thought I was a goner—but I'm okay because I caught this early enough," she added. The 'Heal Squad' podcast host has also faced other health issues in the past, having been diagnosed and treated for a benign brain tumor in 2017 and then learning she had diabetes.
"I was feeling so good, and then I got slapped in the face with a new diagnosis," Maria told the outlet. While visiting the hospital, she came to know about having type 1 diabetes, which runs in her family. Her condition dramatically improved after she was prescribed insulin, went on a strict diet, and began checking her glucose levels.
By October, "I was crushing it," she said as she still takes insulin daily and wears a glucose monitor. "I felt so good. What else could go wrong?" However, she was back to the medical facility again after a month, this time "with excruciating abdominal pain coupled with diarrhea." She did a whole-body MRI when the pain continued and a subsequent biopsy later confirmed that she was suffering from a Stage 2 pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor, which is a form of cancer.
