In an emotional display on social media, actress Nicole Eggert, known for her role on Baywatch, has candidly shared her battle with stage two cribriform carcinoma breast cancer.

Eggert openly discusses the challenges and emotional toll of her breast cancer treatment, including undergoing radiation and its daunting side effects, as the Daily Mail reports.

Last year, Nicole was diagnosed with a form of breast cancer that has now necessitated aggressive treatment.

She has turned to Instagram to share her journey, hoping to provide insights and support to others facing similar battles. Her recent posts detail the beginning steps of her radiation therapy, a treatment known to be both essential and formidable.

Eggert recently underwent a procedure known as a CT scan for mapping out radiation treatment, during which permanent tattoo markings were placed on her body to guide the therapy.

"Okay so I just got out of my CT scan, mapping - as they call it - for my radiation treatment and when they said they were gonna tattoo me, I didn't realize it was actual, real tattoos, so I was tatted!" Eggert expressed her surprise and the permanence of these marks, meant to ensure precision in her upcoming treatments.

"And it's minor, it's nothing but dots, but boy, every step of this process is never gonna let you forget it, there’s just always going to be a constant reminder," she elaborated on how these small tattoos symbolize a much larger struggle. Her emotional response to these permanent marks underpins the psychological impact of cancer treatments, a reality many patients face.

Reflecting on Past Family Trauma with Radiation

Nicole's hesitation about radiation treatment is deeply personal, linked to her father's negative experience with the same therapy.

"What I'm struggling with is I know the damage that radiation does, my father had it on his brain, he had tumors in his brain, and after the first treatment, he was not the same person anymore," she recalled, highlighting the long-term effects radiation had on her father's health and personality.

These family experiences have left her torn between the necessity of treatment and the fear of potential side effects. "And we always said, in hindsight if we had known, we would never have done the radiation on him," she shared, indicating the profound impact such decisions have on families dealing with cancer.

"I've seen the damage it does, so I'm struggling because I don't want it in my body, but it's the next step in hoping that we can stop and kill the cancer that I still have in my lymphatic system," Nicole stated, summing up her conflicted feelings towards the treatment that could both save her life and cause significant harm.

Risks Versus Benefits of Radiation

The actress has openly voiced her fear of the physical changes and potential damage to internal organs caused by radiation. "I know that I'm going to have third-degree burns on my body, I think generally you have some deformation. I'm not thrilled about that part, but I'm fine, I'm just worried about my internal organs," she confided, adding that despite the risks, this step is crucial for reducing the likelihood of cancer recurrence.

"And although the radiation can cause me to have heart failure, lung failure, those chances are lower than the recurrence of cancer if I don't do the radiation, so this is like a balancing of the lesser evil, so I'm going to do it, I'm just struggling with it," Nicole explained her decision, highlighting the difficult choices patients often have to make.

Her statement reflects a common dilemma faced by many cancer patients: weighing the immediate risks of treatment against the long-term benefits. This decision-making process is fraught with emotional and physical considerations, compounded by personal and familial experiences with past treatments.

Emotional Strain of Waiting

Currently, Nicole is in a precarious state of anticipation for further diagnostics to determine her next steps in treatment. "I am good. I am in sort of a gray area and I finished my treatment, waiting for more imaging and hopefully maybe surgery," she updated her followers on her current status.

The emotional toll of not actively engaging in treatment but waiting for outcomes can be incredibly challenging.

"But the gray area is the hardest because you don't know what's happening and you're just, when I'm doing treatment, I felt like I was doing something productive. So it felt positive and I was like, okay, I'm doing something positive. And now that it's just like nothing, it's like, well wait a minute. We have to get this out. So it's, it's just frustrating," Nicole expressed her frustration with the waiting periods that are rarely discussed publicly.

Facing multiple surgeries ahead, Nicole is understandably tired but focused on recovery. "It's hard, I'm tired. I just want to get to the healing part, and then I have two or three surgeries ahead of me, I'm easier with those than anything else," she shared, pointing toward an arduous but hopeful road ahead.