Little Women: LA 's Terra Jolé Breaks Down Over Daughter's Brain Surgeries: 'It's So Scary'
Terra Jolé is trying to stay strong in the face of her daughter’s health issues.
In PEOPLE’s exclusive sneak peek at Thursday’s season premiere of Little Women: LA, the star gets emotional as she opens up about her 4-year-old daughter Penny’s struggle with hydrocephalus, a condition in which excess fluid builds up in brain.
“Penny was born with hydrocephalus and we thought after having the decompression surgery that would be the end of it,” explains Jolé, 38. “Since then, Penny had a programmable shunt put in five months ago. What that means is this is a magnetic shunt that drains fluid from her brain down into her stomach cavity.”
“It’s just scary as s—. It’s so scary,” she admits.
Jolé reveals that three months after the shunt surgery, she had to rush her daughter to the nearest hospital when she threw up twice.
“They told me that there’s a good chance that her shunt is malfunctioning,” she recalls. “I literally found out at 1 a.m., and then at 5 a.m. she’s in surgery.”
“That was the scariest,” she continues, choking up. “That was like, hands down the scariest.”
Jolé says that while the condition isn’t exclusive to little people, it’s “more likely” in a little person like Penny.
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“As a parent going through this, I leaned on other little people. And so I want to give that same kind of help or answers to other little people,” she says. “Because hydrocephalus has changed our life, and sadly it’s not for the better.”
The new season of Little Women: LA (produced by Kinetic Content) premieres Thursday at 10 p.m. ET on Lifetime.
