Just as Erin Andrews had finished fighting one battle in the spotlight, she took on another behind closed doors.
After being awarded $55 million in a painstaking and highly public civil trial against her 2008 stalker, the 38-year-old sportscaster was diagnosed with cervical cancer in early October 2016 four months after a routine checkup. As Sports Illustrated reported, the Dancing With the Stars co-host went in for surgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center soon after.
Despite her newest health hurdle, the devoted journalist did not intend on letting her diagnosis keep her away from the sidelines.
"You wouldn't miss a game," she told her fiancé, professional hockey player Jarrett Stoll, according to Sports Illustrated. "You'd play through any injury, do whatever it takes to get back out there. That's going to be me."
The star kept her word. Less than a week after the surgery, she was on a plane headed to Wisconsin. "Should I have been standing for a full game five days after surgery? Let's just say the doctor didn't recommend that," Andrews told the magazine. "But just as I felt during my trial, sports were my escape. I needed to be with my crew."
However, she initially kept the diagnosis a secret from her colleagues, although they soon noticed changes in her personality.
"Throughout my career, all I've ever wanted is to just fit in," Andrews says. "That I had this extra baggage with the scandal, I didn't want to be any different. I felt that way about being sick too. I don't want players or coaches to look at me differently."
A month later, "the margins were clear," the magazine described. "There would be no need for radiation or chemotherapy."
"Such an incredible weight had been lifted off her shoulders," her father Steve Andrews told Sports Illustrated. "I try not to think about what happened to her too much. But when I do, and I consider the enormity of what Erin has endured, I'll often just sit down and cry."
Now, news of Andrews' recovery can inspire happy tears.