Reality Star Shares She’s Losing Her Memory Amid Stage 4 Cancer Battle

Former Bachelorette Katie Thurston is giving an “uncut” and “raw” update on her stage 4 breast cancer journey.

The 34-year-old comedian revealed in an Instagram post shared on Sunday that her treatment has been causing memory issues and hair loss.

“I’m losing my memory,” said Thurston, who recalled a difficult incident that occurred when she was going through customs while coming back from vacation with husband Jeff Arcuri. Asked where she was coming from, Thurston recalled, “I looked at them and I was like, ‘I don’t remember. I don’t remember.’”

She added that on a separate occasion, “Jeff and I got in a — not an argument, but you know, a little disagreement. I was like, ‘This has happened before,’ and he’s like, ‘When?’ I was like, ‘I don’t know, but I know it has.’”

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A post shared by Katie Thurston (@thekatiethurston)

Thurston said that luckily, she and her husband were able to “laugh about it,” but that the memory issues are just one of several unpleasant side effects of her treatment. “My hair is coming out in an unnatural amount of clumps,” said Thurston, who noted she was “working on that.”

“Sometimes I’m like, stop feeling bad for yourself, but then other times I’m like, no, you’re allowed to feel bad for yourself. Cancer sucks,” she added.

Thurston first announced in February that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer and shared a month later that the cancer had metastasized to her liver. Now, she said she’s at the point in her treatment where she has to “make big decisions” on how to treat her liver, and that she had decided to pursue histotripsy, which uses ultrasound waves to treat tumors.

She noted that the treatment she had undergone, which was supposed to put her into a medically-induced menopause, hadn’t worked, so she “might have to get [her] ovaries taken out,” which is “not ideal.”

Thurston has officially finished her second month of treatment, but explained, “If you’re asking how long treatment is, technically forever. I am optimistic about medical advancements in the future. Fingers crossed as a stage 4 girly.”

Posting her update on National Cancer Survivors Day, the Bachelor Nation star noted, “Every day I’m alive, I’m a survivor. Go me, I guess.”