Nicole Eggert opened up about challenges of balancing her “all consuming” breast cancer battle and menopause symptoms — and shared that it’s her daughters’ love that keeps her moving forward.
“I still have surgeries ahead of me next month that I’m excited about. I really took my time with that because I just didn’t know what was the right route for me,” Eggert, 53, shared on the Monday, September 1, episode of the “Pod Meets World” podcast. “ There’s just so many opinions and options and I’m someone that needs to sleep on it so I took a year to listen to everybody, digest it all … It’s a big decision.”
Eggert, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in January 2024, shared that she initially was unable to get a “lumpectomy” or a “mastectomy” because the “cancer was too big,” instead having to undergo chemotherapy first, followed by radiation.
Post-chemo, the Baywatch alum said that she’s spent “a lot of time trying to detox” her body from the chemotherapy while also managing other symptoms as a woman in her 50s, like menopause.
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“There’s just so much out there, there’s so much information to be had that isn’t given to you by regular, general practicing doctors,” she claimed, noting that she’s focused on figuring out how she can prevent the cancer from returning in the future. .
“Chemo is a beast. And they threw the strongest ones at me. And once they do it you can’t do it again so it’s like, I need for this not only to be effective now but how do I learn how I got here?” she said. “ They say not to think about that, but, sorry, I have to think about it. I want to know what I was doing that got me here. And what choices can I make in my personal life and daily life that will not bring me back here?”
Eggert said that these days, she’s “always at the doctor,” telling cohosts Danielle Fishel, Will Friedle and Rider Strong, “I’m so sick of it … I have two good weeks out of every month and the other two weeks I’m at the treatment center. So it’s really all consuming.”
Fishel — who was diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer in June 2024 before entering remission earlier this summer — pointed even when Eggert is home, she’s still facing menopause.
“So even when you’re feeling good you’re still not feeling that great,” Fishel noted, to which Eggert replied, “100 percent true.”
Eggert appeared on one season 7 episode of Boy Meets World alongside Fishel, Strong and Friedle in 2000. And while her stint on the ABC sitcom was brief, Fishel said the two women have relied on one another amid their respective health battles.
Fishel, for her part, revealed that she had her “first clear mammogram” in June, and is not trying to focus on not having “anxiety in the inbetween.”
Eggert said that outside of the breast cancer community, she also gets a ton of support from her two daughters, Dylan 27, whom she shares with ex Justin Herwick, and Keegan, 13. (The name of Keegan’s father has not been publicly revealed.)
“My oldest lives in New York so she didn’t have to witness a lot of it like my young one did but they’re supportive, they bring me to a place of taking me outside myself too, because when you’re a mom it gives you purpose and keeps you from feeling sorry for yourself,” Eggert explained. “You have stuff to do and you have this role to play. Life is so much bigger than yourself when you’re a mom or a parent.”
Eggert shared that her daughters gave her a “sense of responsibility to get health and to remain healthy,” noting that they would often look to her to see how she was going to “handle it.”
“It’s this moment of, ‘I have to show them how you roll up your sleeves and not crumble,’” she said. “It’s given me a lot of motivation, it’s given me my purpose.”
She joked that when it comes to her tween, Keegan, she’s also an “unpaid Uber driver” which often takes her mind off her health struggle. “I have to be a mom. There are lunches to be made and rides to be given and things to do and it’s such a good distraction,” she added.
Keegan has also had to “go through it emotionally” with her mom, too, Eggert said, recalling back at the start of her diagnosis when she would get “overwhelmed and overstimulated” and the pair would have to rely on each other.
“I would look at her and she would say, ‘Are you OK?’ And we had this moment early on where she said, ‘I don’t know what to do or what to say,’ and I said, ‘It’s OK, neither do I. I just need to sit, let’s just sit and hug and be quiet.’ And we sort of learned it together like that. There is nothing stronger than a good hug from your children. Sitting there quiet and just [having] an understanding of, ‘OK this is so weird and all I can say is this is too much right now and we don’t have any answers. And we don’t have to.’ It was powerful.”
Eggert was diagnosed with breast cancer in January 2024 after finding a lump during a self exam. A mammogram and three biopsies confirmed her diagnosis.
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“It really was throbbing and hurting,” she told People at the time. “I immediately went to my general practitioner and she told me I had to immediately go get it looked at. But the problem was I just couldn’t get an appointment. Everything was booked. So I had to wait until the end of November to get it done.”
In July 2024, she shared via Instagram that her body had a “full and complete response” to the chemotherapy. Five months later, she told Us Weekly she was feeling “good.”
“I’m gearing up to do radiation and then some surgeries and stuff like that. But I feel good spiritually,” she exclusively told Us. “I feel good physically. I feel good.”
Earlier this week, Eggert took to social media to reveal she underwent a mastectomy.
“Had a mastectomy with reconstruction on Thursday,” she wrote via Instagram on August 28. “How was ur weekend? #breastcancer #breastcancerawarness #feelyourselfup.”
