Nicole Eggert, 51, a Baywatch star, has been diagnosed with breast cancer

The “Baywatch” actress, Nicole Eggert, disclosed on Monday that she was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer in December 2023.

She told People that she felt her symptoms were menopausal, since she had gained 25 pounds in three months and experienced “terrible pain” in her left breast in October.

After noticing a lump during a self-exam, she contacted her doctor.

“It was really throbbing and hurting,” the actress revealed. “I immediately went to my general practitioner, and she told me I had to immediately go get it looked at.”

Eggert struggled to get an appointment with a specialist because “everything was booked up,” so she “had to wait until the end of November to get it done.”

While a detection mammography and three biopsies revealed that she had cancer, she does not know if the illness has spread to other regions of her body.

The mother of two will require surgery and is presently waiting for her physician to decide when she will start chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

“I can definitely feel it,” she told People about the bulge in her breast. “It is there. It should be taken out. So it’s simply a question of whether I have to do therapy before the operation or whether they can execute the surgery and then I do the treatment afterwards.

The “Charles in Charge” actor, whose father had skin cancer and her mother had colon cancer, revealed she gets “panics” and is anxious to “get this out” of her, knowing that “it’s growing” with “every second that passes.”

Despite the fact that the road thus far has been “rough,” she has tried to remain cheerful.

“I always read inspirational quotes and corny stuff,” she said, adding that it “gets [her] through.”

Still, her “biggest fear” as a single mother is not being present for her kids, Keegan (12) and Dilyn (25).

“[Dilyn] is an adult, yet I am the only caretaker at home for a 12-year-old. I have no family. “I’ve got nothing,” she complained.

Eggert remembers “the horror” on Keegan’s face when she informed her of her illness.

“It immediately made me understand, ‘There’s no way I’m going to give in to this. This is something I need to go through. This is something I need to beat. “She needs me more than anything or anyone,” she stated.

“My fear is that my everyday hustle, everything that I do to keep everything going, is going to come to a screeching halt when I’m not feeling well or I’m sick or I’m in the hospital or whatever is going on,” she said.

“It’s just so overwhelming, and I’m just doing everything I can not to spiral.”

Eggert also informed her “Perfectly Twisted” podcast listeners that she gets her annual mammograms in December “like clockwork.”

She also stated that she had “dreaded implants” and considers them her “biggest regret in life.”