Katie Thurston is opening up about how her battle with breast cancer has affected her intimate relationship with husband Jeff Arcuri.
“Maybe short term just due to all the medical things I was going through,” Thurston, 34, wrote via Instagram Story on Saturday, April 12, in response to a question from a fan who asked if “intimacy changed” for her since being diagnosed with breast cancer in February.
“I head [sic] to heal from an egg retrieval, multiple biopsies, a port placement,” the Bachelorette alum continued. “It’s been a painful month for my body. But as all the dust settles and my body recovers, things will go back to normal.”
Last week, Thurston shared that her cancer had been “confirmed” as HER2-negative which, according to the Cleveland Clinic, means her type of breast cancer “involves having cancerous cells in your breast that don’t contain high levels of the protein human epidermal growth factor 2.”
“What this means is no chemo,” Thurston shared via Instagram on Thursday, April 10. “Instead I’ll be on Letrozole + Kisqali + Zoladex as my first line of treatment. This is a custom plan based on being [/] having HER2-negative, Luminal B, hormone-positive breast cancer. Letrozole to block estrogen, Kisqali to stop cancer cells from growing, and Zoladex to shut down my ovaries.”
However, this does not mean chemo is completely off the table. “Could I need chemo in the future? Maybe,” she explained. “If this treatment stops working or if the cancer grows again, it’s an option we’ll revisit. We will closely monitor the treatment plan and make sure it’s working for my body.”
On Saturday, Thurston further broke down her post-chemo treatment plan. “Once a month I get a shot in my stomach (zoladex),” she wrote. “Every day I take a daily pill (Letrozole). And every day I’ll take three pills (kisqali) but only for three weeks on, then one week off. I’ll have monthly appts to monitor my heart and do blood draws. I think my first scan from now is in three months.”
She further explained, “I have stage 4 breast cancer, which is considered terminal because it isn’t curable,” but added, “that doesn’t mean I’m dying right now.”
“With today’s treatments, many people live for years, even decades, while managing it like a chronic illness,” Thurston continued. “It’s serious, but it’s not the end. Also you can be stage 4 by definition but have ‘no evidence of disease.’ Think of it as tiny little cancer punks flowing through my body. They are there forever. But they haven’t been able to recruit an army or even a little gang. So these punks aren’t even big enough to show up on our scans. We know they are around. But they aren’t big enough to do much.”
She concluded, “Currently shrinking their army,” with a middle finger emoji.
Us Weekly confirmed on March 22 that Thurston and Arcuri, 36, tied the knot amid her health journey. “I want to be able to be in the hospital with her and just be like, ‘My wife’s in there.’ There’s more power to that,” Arcuri told Us at the time. “I don’t want to be not with you for any of this.”
