Maria Menounos Proudly Shows Off Scars from Pancreatic Cancer Surgery in Bikini Selfie
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“I look back on surgery earlier this year and am grateful for the strength god blessed me with to get through,” the former E! News correspondent said
Instagram/mariamenounos
Maria Menounos showing off her surgery scars after her pancreatic cancer battleMaria Menounos is embracing her scars after sharing her secret battle with pancreatic cancer.
On Sunday, the former E! News correspondent posted a selfie on Instagram while rocking a bikini and proudly showing off the surgery scars on her stomach. The 44-year-old told PEOPLE earlier this year that she had been privately battling stage 2 pancreatic cancer. After being diagnosed in January, she underwent a successful surgery to remove a 3.9-cm. tumor.
“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. ❤️”
In the comments, many fans called Menounos an inspiration and praised her for sharing her journey.
“👏👊🏻💪🏻 Scars of a champion!” one person wrote while another follower commented, “Your scars are now badges of honor!”
Another Instagram user added, “So happy you continue to share your story. Thank you and be proud of those scars. You earned them.”
RELATED: Maria Menounos Reveals She Survived Pancreatic Cancer — with a Baby on the Way
Since sharing her cancer journey, Menounos has been on a mission to encourage others to seek answers to their health problems.
"I need people to know there are places they can go to catch things early," she told PEOPLE 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."
While staying healthy has always been a priority for the "Heal Squad" podcast host, she has faced other health battles 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," Menounos told PEOPLE at the time. A trip to the hospital revealed she had type 1 diabetes, which runs in her family. She was prescribed insulin, went on a strict diet, began monitoring her glucose levels and dramatically improved.
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By October, "I was crushing it," said Menounos, who still takes insulin daily and wears a glucose monitor, "I felt so good. What else could go wrong?" But a month later she was back in the hospital, this time "with excruciating abdominal pain coupled with diarrhea."
When the pain continued, she did a whole-body MRI which revealed the mass on her pancreas, with a subsequent biopsy confirming that it was a Stage 2 pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor, a form of cancer.
Given the early stage at which she caught it, Menounos was given a good prognosis and on Feb. 16 she underwent surgery to remove the tumor along with part of her pancreas, her spleen, a large fibroid and 17 lymph nodes. "It was super painful," she said of the medical ordeal and her recuperation. "I couldn't move or lift myself up."
Months later, she has healed but she still needs to undergo scans once a year for the next 5 years. "I'm so grateful and so lucky," she said.
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