Pregnant 'Real Housewives' Star Received Devastating Cancer Diagnosis
Nermina Pieters-Mekic was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer in July, just after learning she was expecting her second child with husband Erik Pieters.
Real Housewives of Cheshire star Nermina Pieters-Mekic is opening up about her cancer diagnosis, revealing the devastating news that she was pregnant when she learned she had breast cancer. Speaking with OK Magazine two months after she first revealed her diagnosis, the reality TV personality, who shares daughter Alaya with her West Bromwich Albion footballer husband Erik Pieters, said she was in the "unthinkable position" of having to terminate her pregnancy.
The 33-year-old star told the publication, "I was pregnant when I found out I had cancer, it broke my heart we couldn't keep the baby – nobody should ever find themselves in that unthinkable position." Pieters-Mekic previously revealed in an Instagram post that she was diagnosed with an early-stage aggressive breast cancer on July 10 after she "felt a lump in my left breast and I decided to see a GP." After learning her diagnosis, Pieters-Mekic told OK that when she told the doctor she was pregnant, her doctor said, "that changes everything."
Doctors told the star that if she continued with her pregnancy, she would have to undergo an immediate full mastectomy and undergo chemotherapy up until 30 weeks of pregnancy. After giving birth, she would have to immediately resume chemotherapy treatment. Other treatments would be ruled out entirely. Although Pieters-Mekic and her husband sought second opinions from other doctors, asking if they could freeze the embryo or her eggs, "when we returned to my doctor for a follow-up appointment, he confirmed that in one week, the lump had grown and that delaying the treatment would not be good." Amid her diagnosis, Pieters-Mekic told OK that she couldn't bear the thought of not watching her daughter grow.
"One night, I couldn't sleep. I sat in Alaya's nursery. I looked at her height chart on the wall and thought, "What if I'm not here to witness this in a few years? What if I don't see her grow up?'" she recalled. "They couldn't do all the checks because I was pregnant so I kept thinking I'd never forgive myself for not seeing Alaya grow up."
While the Real Housewives star didn't reveal her pregnancy in her initial post sharing news of her diagnosis, she did express those same fears about her daughter, writing, "one question scared me the most and it makes me upset even writing it down – 'will I see my little princess grow up?' My days were filled with hospital appointments every day and there were so many decisions to be made. I had to make some of the hardest decisions in my life."
Now several rounds into her chemotherapy treatments, Pieters-Mekic said that she has "to do everything and anything I possibly can to give myself the best chance to beat this because I have a little girl here and she needs me." She said that by sharing her story, she hopes to help others, noting, "I never in my wildest dreams thought this would happen to me. I never get ill, I eat a good diet, I exercise with my horses, I barely drink, I'm very healthy. But cancer doesn't discriminate. One in seven women will get breast cancer in their lifetime, and a lot of those will be young women. It's easy to think 'it won't happen to me', but it can happen to anyone – I'm proof of that. I need women to check themselves, and be checked."
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