Abby Lee Miller is having a hard time keeping her chin up while she continues her cancer battle, a source told PEOPLE Thursday.
“She has two more chemo sessions to go, but she’s in a really bad place — mentally and emotionally,” the source said. “She’s really losing it.”
Videos by PopCulture.com
In April, a day after undergoing emergency surgery for what was initially believed to be an aggressive spinal infection, the former Dance Moms star was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system.
“It was not an infection, it was a type of a non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma – it’s a type of a cancer,” Dr. Hooman M. Melamed, an orthopedic spine surgeon at Cedar Sinai Marina Del Rey Hospital who has been treating the star told PEOPLE at the time. “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.”
The doctor added that it is a “preliminary diagnosis pending pathology and oncology results.”
Miller initially was rushed to the emergency room after a recent release from prison after she experienced “excruciating neck pain” and weakness in her arm. When her condition deteriorated quickly, Melamed performed emergency surgery for a multi-level laminectomy.
“If we didn’t do something, she was going to die,” Melamed said. “Her blood pressure was bottoming out. She was not doing well.”
At the time, Miller was living in a halfway house after serving a 366-day sentence for bankruptcy fraud at the Victorville Federal Correctional Institution in California.
She was transferred in March to the Residential Reentry Center in Long Beach, a halfway house that helps with the nitty gritty details of reacclimatizing to society.
Miller is scheduled to be released from custody on Friday, but it is unknown if the Lifetime personality will return to a halfway house after treatment.
“After the hospital she’ll be going into a rehab facility, so everything is still up in the air,” the source said. “Right now they’re just focusing on her health.”
In May 2017, Miller was sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison, followed by two years of supervised release for bankruptcy fraud. She was also fined $40,000 and ordered to pay the $120,000 judgment.
Photo credit: Instagram/Abby Lee Miller
