Brooke Burke-Charvet is giving her fans an intimate look at the struggles of facing and fighting cancer.
The “Dancing With the Stars” host underwent thyroid surgery on Wednesday and has been sharing the experience in very candid posts online. “Made it through my surgery,” the 41-year-old mother of four tweeted Thursday after her operation. “Thank God! So far, so good. I'm recovering, I'm strong, I'm grateful for my brilliant doctors.” Although it wasn’t painless. “Feels like I got hit by a car,” she noted.
Burke-Charvet felt well enough for visitors after the procedure (“Nothing better than family,” she tweeted) – and to waste a little time on social media sites (“I'm online, that’s a good sign”). She also issued a heartfelt thank you to her fans for their “prayers and light.”
Thursday has certainly been better than Wednesday for Burke-Charvet. Going into surgery, “The Naked Mom” author was tired because she was unable sleep the night before. She posted a photo of herself just prior to going under the knife and in it she’s laying in a hospital bed looking weary and drained – although hospital gowns rarely flatter. She captioned the photo, which she posted to WhoSay, “Last looks at my neck. Here we go…”
The same day, Burke-Charvet shared a very personal post on her website, ModernMom.com, writing about how she broke the news about having thyroid cancer to her kids, who range in age from 4 to 12. “I decided not to tell my children about my diagnosis for as long as I possibly could because I didn't want them to worry,” explained the TV host, who is married to “Baywatch” star David Charvet. “I know that my younger ones still don't have a great concept of time and I didn't want them to be anxious, worried and asking 1,000 questions.”
One by one, each child learned about her diagnosis and Burke-Charvet shared the heartbreaking story of her son Shaya’s reaction. “My son is 4, and I doubt he totally understands,” she wrote on ModernMom. “His response was, ‘Is Daddy going to get it too?’ And of course I explained that wasn't going to happen and Mommy was going to be just fine. He laid in bed last night with David, kinda sad and said, ‘I don't want Mommy to die…’ That's the stuff that breaks my heart and scares me. We both held him and told him that I wasn't going to leave him ever.”
However, as emotional as it was leading up to the surgery, Burke-Charvet felt prepared. “I'm not afraid anymore,” she wrote. “I think I've been dealing with it so much the past couple months that now I'm ready to just get it done and put this behind me. My only need is being OK for my husband and my children, so they don't have to go through any pain and making this as easy as possible for them. I've really realized that everything I'm going through, my family is going through, too.”
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