'Love & Marriage: Huntsville'’s Kimmi Scott Talks 'Bouncing Back' After 'Aggressive' Breast Cancer (Exclusive)

'Love & Marriage: Huntsville' star Kimmi Scott opens up to PEOPLE about her difficult breast cancer journey and how she’s using her platform to raise awareness for early detection

On June 14, 2022, Kimmi Scott was at home watching the NBA finals with her husband Maurice when she naturally ran her hand along her right breast and noticed a lump. Knowing that she had her annual exam in December, the Love & Marriage: Huntsville star admits she didn’t think much of the lump.

However, as a registered nurse, she knew she needed to give herself a more thorough self exam.

“As a nurse I was like, ‘Eh, maybe I should check further.’ So I started looking under my right arm, my left breast and under my left arm. And I found a second lump under my right arm,” she recalls. “So that was probably when I actually started getting really worried because I understand as a clinician that once cancer sometimes gets into your lymph nodes, that's kind of the highway to the rest of your body.”

Scott immediately scheduled a doctor’s visit and received a mammogram on June 16. Six days later, she was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer — which accounts for about 10-15% of all breast cancers.

The real estate agent, 34, is now opening up to PEOPLE about her devastating breast cancer diagnosis and how she’s been working hard to “bounce back” after a draining year of treatment.

“I was devastated, you know, pretty much every bit of clinical experience that I had left me in that moment. I was just crushed,” she tells PEOPLE of her diagnosis, adding that her doctor immediately gave her information about oncologists and treatment plans. “And I told her, ‘Wow, I just can't take it all in. I just can't do all of that at one time. I’m stunned.’ It took me a few days to wrap my head around it and actually kind of be functional.”

“Everybody goes through the ‘why me’ phase after you get such a phone call. So I just had to gather myself clinically and physically in regards to being diagnosed with literally the worst type of breast cancer that they had at this point,” she adds. “So it was tough.”

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Shortly after, Scott said she started 20 weeks of “very aggressive” chemotherapy, receiving her last infusion on December 5, 2022. A PET scan then showed that all of the cancer was gone so she underwent breast conserving surgery before starting 36 rounds of radiation, which she completed on April 23, 2023.

Although she got through her treatment “unscathed for the most part,” Scott says it “takes a taxing toll on your body.”

“As a woman, I feel I'm pretty strong mentally, psychologically, physically. I was in pretty good health at the end of the day, but those medications, they will just beat you up. I was exhausted almost to tears,” she admits. “There were various aspects of it that were extremely daunting. The nauseousness of it all is just overwhelming, the numbness and tingling like in my fingertips and toes, I was extremely short of breath from a little bit of lung damage, it affects your taste buds and there were so many foods I couldn’t tolerate — I just felt sick.”

“It was very difficult,” the reality star continues. “And even to this day, my body is just having a hard time bouncing back from all the toxins, just getting it out of your system.”

Despite the rough experience, Scott says she physically feels great nowadays but gets drained quickly, which has been frustrating as an active person.

“At this point I'm just trying to get over that last little hump. I’m just tired of being tired,” she explains. “I wanna get up at seven o'clock, make my kids breakfast, get the lunches on the way, put my clothes on, get out the door and then I'm home by three o'clock. Right now I get out the door at about 12. So I start a little later and I finish a little later.”

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The OWN star also praises her husband, children, parents and friends for their continued emotional support during her recovery.

“A lot of the journey is mind over matter,” she notes. “I knew my body was physically capable of taking on this task. It never occurred to me that my body wasn't gonna make it through the task. But to keep your mind out of the negativity zone, it takes a really good group of friends and family. And that's what I had.”

As Scott navigates trying to “bounce back” and create some sort of normalcy in her life, she’s excited that her fans will get to see parts of her breast cancer journey on Love & Marriage: Huntsville. 

Initially, she was hesitant to include her diagnosis on the show, but her husband Maurice convinced her to follow through with sharing her journey with the public. Scott says by doing so, not only was she able to control the narrative but she was able to raise awareness for breast cancer and the importance of early detection.

“I wanted to have a handle on my story. When it comes to reality tv, there's some areas that get a little manipulated as far as presenting your story. And I wanted to tell my story my way,” Scott says. “And I would've never thought that I would've been given some platform to help the next woman. The amount of people that have told me that my situation has inspired them to actually go get a mammogram is incredible.”

“My goal at this juncture in life has always been to help the next person. It's pre-screening and it's early detection because early detection was the key for me,” she tells PEOPLE. “So that's where I'm at in life at this point, just trying to help people understand how important that part is.”

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