Relationship and dating expert Mel Schilling has shared an update on her battle with stage 3 colon cancer.
The MAFS expert discussed her journey with The Mirror, revealing that “It’s getting tough now,” as she goes through chemotherapy treatment.
“I’m about halfway through and it’s getting hard. Feeling fatigued and nauseous is a bigger part of my everyday life. It feels like I’m hungover or pregnant every day, which is not fun.”
Her diagnosis came after she noticed some changes in her body when she was travelling back and forth to appear on the UK and Australian seasons of MAFS.
“The last quarter of 2023, I was in Australia filming MAFS and there was a crossover with filming in the UK so I had to fly back and forth. That was hard because it’s a long flight, so you’ve got the tiredness and the jet lag and I’m 52! My body was complaining about all the long-haul flights and I thought that’s all it was.”
“I wasn’t paying attention to my body because I was so busy,” she revealed, “Once I got home, I realised I hadn’t eaten anything in around a week and I hadn’t been to the toilet in three weeks. I’d lost over a stone in weight and I was on a liquid diet by this point. I wasn’t even aware of how much I had lost, so things were serious. But I never thought it would be cancer.”
After being misdiagnosed twice with constipation before a CT scan revealed she had a 5cm tumour in her colon, Mel underwent a successful keyhole surgery to remove the tumour and has had five rounds of chemotherapy.
“I’m exploring a range of traditional and non-traditional treatments to give me the best chance of beating this so it’s positive so far” she said.
