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Abby Lee Miller Shares Emotional Photo on 1 Year Anniversary of Emergency Spinal Surgery: ‘I Lived to Tell My Story’

Abby Lee Miller Emergency Spinal Surgery photo
Abby Lee Miller attends JoJo Siwa's Sweet 16 Birthday celebration at W Hollywood on April 09, 2019 in Hollywood, California. Amy Sussman/Getty Images

Baring it all. Abby Lee Miller shared an emotional photo of herself on Wednesday, April 17, exactly one year after undergoing emergency spinal surgery to remove an infection. 

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“This mass/tumor choking my spinal cord turned out to be Burkitt Lymphona,” the Dance Moms star, 52, captioned a solemn Instagram picture of herself from last year with short hair while revealing her back scar. “I endured ten rounds of chemo therapy (each lasting 6 days with 4/ 24 hr bags pumping poison into my body ending with a spinal tap in 3 spots, plus another shot of Chemo into my tailbone area up the spinal cord around my brain cavity) Ten times! Another spine surgery was needed & I have one more still to go.”

Miller continued to open up about her journey to recovery and questioned why her doctors didn’t take her complaints of pain more seriously. “I struggled thru months of physical therapy to learn how to sit up again, to crawl and maybe with a miracle I’ll walk,” she wrote. “Why didn’t the ER Doctors on duty do their jobs? I came in twice with the same symptoms? Why didn’t somebody listen to me, the patient? I finally found the right team that’s why I lived to tell my story, I have a lot to say!”

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One year ago today ~ I underwent emergency surgery for an infection in my spine. This mass/tumor choking my spinal cord turned out to be Burkitt Lymphoma. I endured ten rounds of chemo therapy (each lasting 6 days with 4/ 24hr bags pumping poison into my body ending with a spinal tap in 3 spots, plus another shot of Chemo into my tailbone area up the spinal cord around my brain cavity) Ten times! Another spine surgery was needed & I have one more still to go. I struggled thru months of physical therapy to learn to sit up again, to crawl and maybe with a miracle someday I’ll walk. Why didn’t the ER Doctors on duty do their jobs? I came in twice with the same symptoms? Why didn’t somebody listen to me, the patient? I finally found the right team that’s why I lived to tell my story, I have a lot to say! Thank you to all wonderful top notch professionals who continue to help me heal. For those who missed it, misdiagnosed me, and the so called Federal “Doctor” who took me off medication cold turkey and the other ER “Doctor Hollywood” who told me to go home and take it easy for 10 days – STOP practicing! Please 🙏🏻

A post shared by Abby Lee Miller (@therealabbylee) on

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The dance coach expressed her gratitude for “all wonderful top notch professionals” who continue to help her heal and condemned those who wrote her off: “For those who missed it, misdiagnosed me, and the so called Federal ‘Doctor’ who took me off medication cold turkey and the other ER ‘Doctor Hollywood’ who told me to go home and take it easy for 10 days — STOP practicing! Please.” 

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Miller spoke exclusively to Us Weekly on April 9 and shared an update on her health. “I’m OK. I’m good. Good days and bad days, good hours and bad hours,” said the Lifetime personality, who was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in April 2018. “I go therapy three days a week and then the fourth day I have somebody come to me and they are concerned with me walking again because of my knee. I needed a knee replacement way before any of this happened. Before prison, before the cancer, before anything. And now it’s kind of hindering me — that same knee injury.”

The Lifetime personality was released from prison in March 2018 after serving a 10-month sentence for bankruptcy fraud.

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