Let's Be Clear with Shannen DohertyLove is Blind star Shaina Hurley met her true love on reality TV, but when the cameras stopped rolling the honeymooners received a reality check that no one saw coming. What was supposed to be a happy time with a baby on board, turned into a fight for her life and her unborn child. Find out how Shaina would overcome one health hurdle just to find out there were many more to come.
This is Let's Be Clear with Shannon Doerny. Hello, Let's be Clear family.
My name is Shana Hurley. You may have seen me on Love is Blind on Netflix. I am so honored to be here. A little bit about myself is I am thirty five years old. I grew up in a small town up near the border of Wisconsin and Illinois. It was about fourteen years end up doing hair and then I ended up going on the reality show Love is Blind. It was one of the best experiences of my life. And I am now married to my soulmate, Cristos, and we have a nine month old baby boy, and so I'm a new mother and I'm just honestly getting the hang of it, getting used to it, and I just absolutely love it. And so I am just honored to be a guest host on this episode of Let's Be Clear, because, as we know, Shannon Doherty was determined to educate and empower through this platform, and so I'm just honored to share my testimony and I'm just praying that it reaches anyone who needs help and that God has you, and so I'm.
Just excited to share my story.
I ended up becoming pregnant this was June of twenty twenty three, and we were so.
Excited over the moon.
We actually had a miscarriage the December before that, so when we finally were pregnant again, we were just we were excited, and so we ended up going to Greece. My husband's Greek, so we go to Greece every year, and we were celebrating our one year anniversary and it was a beautiful trip newly pregnant, and I ended up getting a call from my gynecologist that the pap smear came back abnormal, and I remember just not having a good feeling, but kind of putting it in the back of my head. And so we had a schedule appointment right away, and the students they could get me in was September, so I ended up going back. We ended up going back to the States five days later and just waiting, and so finally when they had to get me in for a cole pascopy just to see what was going down there, my gynecologist immediately told me, she goes Shana, it's not looking good. And I remember just trying not to cry because I did have a bad feeling. And so I got back, told my husband and my family what the doctor said, and so we had a lot of people praying that it was fine.
It wasn't what we thought it was.
And I ended up getting a call the next day that my doctor called me and she goes, Shana, I'm so sorry. The lab results came back and you have cervical cancer. And I don't know why. I kind of was like not laughing. I don't know if it was a defense mechanism, but I was just so in shock, like no way, and so I got off the phone with the doctor and I immediately start bawling my eyes out, and I was alone, and I remember trying to call my husband and he wasn't answering.
He wasn't a meeting.
I called my mom wasn't answering, and I just remember like freaking out, like no one's answering, and I had this news and I don't know what to do, and so I just prayed and I'm like, okay, God, like Lord, like you, news was going to happen, and I'm not going to lie.
I was angry.
I asked the question that no Christian really we were supposed to ask, but I asked. I was like why, God, you know why? And so finally my dad called me back and I told him the news. I'm like, where's mom and he told me or I told him, and I go, Dad like, I came back, I have cancer, and he was just a disbelief. We were just all shocked. And so I immediately went down this dark hole and I was on the phone with my mom and I was angry, and she immediately stopped me and she goes, Shana, like, I don't know what you're going through, but do not let your mind go there. The enemy likes to take captive of our thoughts. He wants to give us hopelessness, right, but he's not the author God is, and she goes, you need to really protect your mind right now, and so she was start thinking him now for your healing. And so that's what I did. And so right away a week later, they got me in to Northwestern and I told Lord. I was like, okay, God, like you were sovereign, you knew this was going to happen, right, So I'm praying that you put me into the doctors of your choice.
Who do you want me to go to? And so I didn't know how any of this worked. And so I go in and my doctor comes in, doctor Hitchcliffe, and she.
Was She immediately made me feel safe, right, which was hard because I wasn't the easiest patient, and so I really do think she was patient with me. And she immediately told me, she goes, Shanna, I'm so sorry that you're here right now and a time that's supposed to be happy. This definitely puts like a black cloud over it. And she basically told me what the protocol.
Was, right. And so I was three.
Months pregnant at this point, and the tricky thing is is when you have cervical cancer being pregnant, the cervix is what holds pregnancy. So it was really tricky what the next steps were going to be. Usually when a woman finds out that she has pre cancer cells or she has cancer cells is they will do the procedure to cold knife cone. It's where they cut a cone shape into the cervix to try to get all the cancer out. That problem being I'm pregnant, cervix is what the cervix is what holds pregnancy.
And so.
I asked what the risks were with me being able to carry the pregnancy, and it was a high percentage that I would lose the baby, and I immediately I couldn't bear the thought of.
Losing this baby. I don't know if mentally I could have handled another.
Miscarriage, and so I ended up turning down that procedure, which it's tricky again because when they do that procedure, they could take those biopsies and they can tell you what stage it is, where exactly it's at. And so me turning down this procedure, you're going blindly into having cancer pregnant. So they were freaking out and worried that we don't know how fast it's spreading, if it's spreading, and so she told me to think about it.
I ended up telling her, I'm like, I'm not going to do it.
I did choose the baby's life, which again this isn't medical advice for anybody. I think every situation is different, but I really just in my heart had a piece that I was going to be fine, that the board was going to sustain me. And so my doctor she had to go meet with the board because it's tricky, like they you don't get a lot of people that are pregnant with circcal cancer.
It does happen. I've heard testimonies.
Too of it, and so they went to the board and they were just telling me, Okay, we're going to have some other options. And the other options were to have a laparoscopic surgery. I had to have it four twenty two weeks because the chances of miscarachosi I'll even higher and it's just too risky. And so with the laparoscopic surgery, they will cut like incisions into your stomach and they had to go they would have to go around the baby to make sure it wasn't spreading into the lymph nodes which you have to be put on your which is the anesthesia. That's a high risk, right. And then they wanted to do chemotherapy to try to just get rid of the cancer, which I did deny chemo. I know other testimonies that they did do chemo and either the baby ended up death or something, and so I just didn't want to risk that, and so I did deny chemo and I did not want to do the laparoscopic surgery. I just had a feeling that I was fine because again I had no symptoms coming leading up to having cervical cancer.
That's what was crazy. They had gone off in my pap smear.
But this whole situation took a toll with me and Christos, and I'd get from his point of view, it was out of his control, and so he really he did kind of put the hammer down and he was like, Shana, I feel like this is a happy medium.
He was really encouraging it.
He goes, I want to have this baby, but I want you here to raise him, and so I there's a lot of fights with that. I'm not gonna lie. I did not want to cave. I really felt I was fine, but I finally agreed to do the laparoscopic surgery, which was very invasive, and that healing was actually worse than having a C section.
But we'll get back to that later.
I caved. I did the laparoscopic surgery. Praise God that it had not spread spread to my lymph notes, because if it had that's when it's fatal. So did not spread to my lymph notes. They got kind of an idea where I was at because before that, actually when they were monitoring with MRIs leading up to the laparoscopic surgery, they had actually found a mass not only in the where I had cancer in the cervix, but they had saw a larger mass up higher in the canal. So that's why they were also pushing the chemotherapy because they were really worried. And what was wild with that was though, was when I told my family we had people all over the world praying for me.
It was insane. I'm so grateful to them.
And after the laparoscopic surgery, the mass was now gone, so they don't know how, they don't know why, which I know why. I do one thousand percent believe it was the Lord. But so after the laparoscopic surgery they found.
Out where I was.
I ended up having stage two cervical cancer, and so they had an idea and they did strongly keep encouraging chemotherapy, but I did deny. So my poor doctors, they so patient with me, and people have to remember, like I'm their patient first before the baby, right, like I'm the one who went cancer. So they just wanted me to be okay.
Right.
But so the decision was we were going to just monitor me until I was going to give birth with MRIs just to make sure it wasn't spreading, even though MRIs aren't the best indicator to seeing all the cancer.
But they agreed at the end of the day. It was my decision.
I'm my own advocate, right and so I was being monitored with MRIs monthly. Finally January I was technically due March third January COMMS, I go in for my checkup, I have like four doctors coming to the office and they tell me that they strongly encouraged me to deliver early. My doctor wanted me to go at thirty two weeks, which I just felt that was way too early. I didn't want my baby to be in the nick you for eight weeks, you know.
And so then they came to the collusion, well, let's try thirty four weeks.
And I know a lot of people that deliver at thirty four weeks, and I understand that people would choose differently, so again like this isn't medical advice at all. But again, I just felt that the Lord was really going to sustain me, and so I denied it, which they were really not. They kind of put the hammer down, like really trying to persuade me to deliver at thirty four weeks, and so I just didn't want to, and they were giving me all the all the consequences of not taking the medical advice of like what could happen.
They were like, you might have to.
I'm not trying to be Teamory, but they were saying, you might have to urinate out of like a bag for the rest of your life because it's gonna fect your inside, like the baby cannot make it, like all this stuff, and again, like I just really put my trust in God that he was going to sustain me through this. Right, we didn't know anything about the cancer, and so after that, I put my foot down and I'm like, I'm not going to deliver till thirty seven and a half thirty eight weeks, and so they obviously they had to comply with that, which wasn't easy.
Again, God bless them.
I wasn't the easiest patient, but I then they wanted to They were throwing out the idea of giving me a reectomy upon delivery, which I just was not easy with. We wanted more kids, and I just felt like it wasn't spreading. Let's wait to do the cold knife cone after my after I delivered the baby, right, and so I started doing my research about hysterectomies, and again we didn't know enough about the cancer to go ticket that far, right, so I denied it and so.
Finally, at thirty.
Seven thirty eight weeks, I delivered a healthy baby boy. I was immediately in love. I had to have a sea section, which I wanted to have a vaginal birth, but I had to.
Pick and choose my battle.
I got this far, so I was just thankful that I could even have this baby at all. And so I ended up having a sea section, and I had a great experience in the hospital. My nurses were amazing, and so I brought home the baby and everything was great, but I still wasn't in the clear right. We still had to deal with the cancer. So the first part was finally I got my healthy baby boy, and now I had to wait six weeks after birth so they could perform the cold knife cone.
And so what had happened even before that though.
I three weeks after the baby was born, I was going upstairs.
I remember it was pretty late, and I was telling chrystals like my eyes.
Are like blurry, like my vision's weird, like I kind of was getting a headache.
I was like, I'm gonna go upstairs and to feed the baby and put them.
Down, and I was nursing your ghosts, and all of a sudden like my left arm started going numb, and I was like, oh, maybe the baby's sitting on my arm weird, you know, And so I moved him, and all of a sudden, my whole entire left side of my body went completely numb, and I just started freaking out. And I called my husband downstairs and I'm like, I know, I think I'm having a stroke, and he's like, you're not having a stroke, you know.
Having a stroke.
And all of a sudden, my left side in my face went completely numb, and I couldn't like talk barely, and my head was like going dark, and so I called my mom.
Crystals rushes upstairs.
I called my mom like, I think I'm having a stroke, and so she immediately starts praying, and I just went into survival mode and I grabbed the baby. I'm breastfeeding, but I grabbed formula, I grabbed baby the diaper bag, and I just left crystals in the in the house because I was like in survival mode. He follows me and he ends up like we rushed to the hospital.
And it's tricky with.
Strokes because sometimes by the time you get there they can't detect it. If it like passes and so they brought me the back right away. This doctor in the er was like doing all the tests for if I was if I had experienced or if I experience a stroke, and she goes your left side is trooping, and so they kept me were running tests or whatever, and it was just awful.
And I just.
Remember in that moment though, on the way to the hospital before we got there, like I don't want to die, Like I really thought I was going to die. It was worse than finding out I was having a cancer, because it was so abrupt of this happening right, And so I didn't want to do the cold knife home. By the way, even after the baby, I was going to maybe go a holistic route and try.
To get rid of it.
And it was just this fear that overtook me when I was going through the tia, this mini stroke, whatever you want to call it, that I was like, Okay, God, I don't care do the surgery. I don't think I have time to do the holistic route, Like I just don't want to die, Like I want to be here to raise this baby.
I don't want to die.
I don't want him going through life without knowing his mother. And so I was like, okay, God, I'm going to do the cold night phone, I'm going to do the surgery. And so anyway, they said it was most likely a tia so as a precursor. So they didn't know if it was a precursor for to have a stroke later on, so they wanted me to come back do all these brain tests, right. And so it's also tricky because it could have been they call it some kind of migraine. It could mimic a stroke, right. They just wanted to make sure that it wasn't going to be precursor for a real stroke because that could be fatal, obviously.
And so.
I also want to say that because I hemorrhaged during my birth with the r ghosts, because I lost so much blood, right, and so they wanted to give me this thanks Love and X. It's basically a blood thinner to make sure you don't have a stroke. I did deny that because I was like, why would I take that if I hemorrhaged, right, It didn't make sense to me, But now I know why. It's because that could happen, and so I'm sorry to my doctors for that one. But anyway, so after this whole mini stroke ordeal. I get back and it was traumatizing because I really did think that I was going to die, and so I put my wife flag in the air. I ended up doing the cold knife cone, so they ended up taking me, putting me under, and I get out of the hospital. I wait a couple of weeks and my doctor calls me and she tells me, I'm so sorry, Shana, like the surgery was not successful. It is higher than we thought, and so we're going to have to schedule you for another cold knife comb surgery six weeks from now. So at this point, I was getting pretty depressed because I at that point, I'm like, okay, Lord, I don't know what you're doing. Not that this was a god because I know God doesn't do this, but he allows it. And so at that point I was like, okay, I'm going to have to just completely thrender the situation. And so I healed for six weeks and I immediately had to go back in and my doctor comes in before surgery and she tells me and she goes, Shana, I know that you don't want to do chemo, you don't want to have a hysterectomy, but if this surgery doesn't work, We're gonna have to go down that rope.
I'm gonna I would lose.
My hair, I would maybe never have children again. And in that moment, I was just like okay, God, Like, if that's the route that I'm going to have to go, I'm gonna have to be okay with it, which was really hard.
And so I go in, they put me under, I wake up. It was awful.
The pain was so awful, the recovery was awful. It was about a month of straight bleeding. Just it was painful. And so finally my doctor calls and the surgery was successful. So I just remember hearing those words my baby. I was laying in bed, my stepdaughter's in her room sleeping, my husband's sleeping, my baby sleeping on and I didn't want to wake the baby, right, and so I'm just like quietly sobbing, like thanking the Lord, like I can't believe this is real, Like I'm finally hopefully cancer free, Praise God. And so when everyone heard the news, everyone was just so ecstatic and yeah, and so it was hard because again this wasn't medical advice, but I just felt like no woman should have to choose between saving her baby and saving herself right, Like I felt like technology is so advanced these days, like how do we not have a cure? Right? And so I just my heart goes out to the women that weren't as fortunate as I was. And I can't have sympathy for myself with this experience because a lot of people don't have the outcome that I have. Most people, a lot of women don't make it.
A lot of.
Babies don't make it and or they have to have the hysterectomy or they have to like they had to have the miscarriage, you know. And so I'm just so thankful and grateful every day that this was the outcome. I don't know why God allows us to go through certain things, but maybe he did allow it so I could be on this platform and share my experience and give hope to another person out there going through the same thing.
My journey wasn't over yet.
So two months ago, I ended up having really bad abdominal pains and I still looked kind of pregnant.
I didn't know what was going on. I knew my hormones were going out of control.
It had like five surgeries in six months, and so the pain was so bad, I had to go to the er again and they did some tests and they realized that the cervix, a scar tissue from having all those surgeries, healed shut and so I had accumulated a lot of blood that was building up in my body. So they had to do an emergency surgery to get the blood out, and so that healing was awful. But I woke up immediately pain free, so it was great. This experience definitely tested my faith in ways that I never knew.
I was raised Christian my whole life.
My grandfather was a pastor, and I always believed, and I've had other experiences where I just knew God was real.
But through this it definitely tested me. I was shaken, but I was not pushed. That makes sense.
I had to walk by faith and not fear for the first time, and I had to be okay if I wasn't gonna make it.
And that's what was the hardest part.
I just remembered journaling throughout my pregnancy, like Lord, if I don't make it, like He's sovereign, right, And so I remember just the whole pregnancy. Psalm ninety one would always come to me, and it's he that dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. So I just remember not only going into survival mode, but hiding in that secret place with God just to sustain me, because I don't think my mental health was strong enough to be able to like really put my wrap my head around what was going on, right, And so I think this only strengthened my faith.
And again I don't know.
Why He let me have the outcome that he did, but I'm just grateful and through him, regardless of your outcome, he is there and he never does leave you. And so ever, since I was declared cancer free, I had my PET scan a month and a half ago as well, and I have no cancer in the body, no sign of HBB, nothing, which was amazing. And so each day I just have this gratitude that life is so short and the things that we worry about are so minuscule and just nothing compared to what really matters. And I really do believe health is wealth. And since this whole experience, like from doing my own research, it made me even take my health more seriously. Where what we're putting in our bodies food wise, makeup wise, clothing wise. It just makes you more aware and just to be grateful every single day that we're here because life is so precious and we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, but we do know who holds the future, and just to completely put your.
Trust in God. So my advice for anyone who was pregnant and worried about their own health is go in, go get checked.
At the same time, I also believe that you are your best advocate. Know all the facts what's going on. I did go to the non traditional route, which is not medical.
Advice, but do your research then make the decision.
Because again not a knock to the health industry, but if I.
Did listen to the doctors of what they wanted to do, I don't know if my baby would be here. I don't know if I would be able to have more children, and so I did what was best for me.
You need to do what's best for you, and if that is having the hysterectomy, if that is not going through, if you know what I'm saying, like I do, advocate for you, do what's best for you. And so my advice is just to do your own research. Find the best doctors you trust that you just feel safe with. That would be my best advice.
And so.
Yeah, I just want to thank you all for letting me share my story on Shannon Doherty's podcast. You could follow me on Instagram at Shana dot Hurley. God bless you, Take care and thank you for listening.
I appreciate it.
And I just hope that this finds someone that needs to hear it, that there is a way out, that God has you and you.
Are so loved. Thank you, Take care.
