Updated: Maria Menounos Describes What It’s Like to Recover From Brain Surgery

Update:

On the six-month anniversary of her surgery to remove a brain tumor, Maria Menounos shared a video on Instagram showing her recovering right after the procedure. "This video was taken 24 hours after my brain surgery," she captioned the video. "I still can’t believe that you can eat and speak normally so soon after. It was hard to keep my eyes open bc i was seeing double at this point."

In the video, Menounos is in a hospital bed being fed broth by her friend of 26 years—the first bit of food she'd had since the surgery. Although her eyes are closed, she's able to speak and joke around with the other people in the video. "it’s a journey and you need help so Don’t be afraid to ask for it," she writes.

She went on to explain that she's received many messages from people thanking her for demystifying the surgery and the recovery process of the procedure. "I wanted to share this so if you are about to go through this you can see with your own eyes what it can be like," she wrote. "Everyone is different...but if I can ease your fears a bit I would like to."

Original report, August 30:

It's been almost three months since TV host Maria Menounos had surgery to remove a brain tumor. But, as she described in an interview with Today, she's finding out that the recovery process presents its own set of challenges.

"I still have a hard time chewing on my right side because [the tumor] was on my right side and it affected the trigeminal nerve, which controls all of your face," Menounos told Today's Savannah Guthrie. She also said that she sometimes gets dizzy if she moves her head from side to side too quickly. "Sometimes I can look like I’ve been in a car accident, so I just shift carefully,” she said.

But, overall, Menounos says these are small issues: "I feel so lucky to be functioning, to be almost normal, and to not have cancer," she said.

Menounos first revealed that she had a tumor (and that it had been removed) in July. She told People that starting in February she had been experiencing a series of worrying symptoms, including lightheadedness, slurred speech, headaches, and difficulty reading the teleprompter on set. An MRI test showed that she had a "golf-ball sized" tumor pressing on the nerves in her face, which was causing her symptoms. So, on her 39th birthday in early June, the tumor was surgically removed—at which point Menounos' doctor was able to confirm that it was benign.

But just a month after the surgery—which removed 99.9 percent of the tumor—she told People, “My face is still numb. This is something that takes at least a month of healing, but I’m getting stronger and stronger every day and I’ll be back to normal very soon.” Even now Menounos is still experiencing the after effects, but she said she's continuing to improve bit by bit.

According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, it's not unusual for patients to require physical or speech therapy during the recovery process. However, as Guthrie mentioned, the prognosis for Menounos is quite positive and her doctor doesn't expect a recurrence. So, although recovery seems to be slow going, it is still going in the right direction.

Related:

• The Common Brain Tumor Symptom You Shouldn't Ignore
• Can Brain Tumors Run in the Family?
• Lauren Holiday Shared Her First Selfie After Brain Tumor Surgery

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