Bachelor Nation alum Joe Amabile is offering a glimpse into his recovery process after undergoing brain surgery.
“So, it’s true. Do you really have the … the scar?” Joe’s wife, Serena Pitt, lip-synched a line from Harry Potter in a social media video shared on Saturday, August 15. (Harry Potter famously has a lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead, hidden beneath his bangs.)
In response, Joe, 40, shyly lifted his black baseball cap to reveal a thin but substantial scar that spans the length of his hairline.
“Wicked,” Serena, 28, mouthed in response.
Joe had brain surgery earlier this month to remove a tumor.
“A few peaceful moments from the hospital 🤍Incredibly grateful to the team at NYU Langone Health for their endless patience, care, compassion and kindness these past few days,” Serena wrote via Instagram on August 9, sharing a handful of post-op photos featuring her spouse. “Joe is [now] home recovering, and we’re so grateful to have been in such good hands.”
Joe, who met Serena on season 7 of Bachelor in Paradise, announced in July that he was preparing to undergo the invasive procedure.
“So a little medical update. I didn’t share my Prenuvo [full body scan] results because they ended up finding a lesion in my brain,” Joe said in an Instagram video last month, revealing his health battle. “Then, I had to go get a brain MRI and there was a blueberry size lesion in my brain that looks to be a glioma, which is a tumor. I now need to get brain surgery next week to get it removed and get it tested.”
The former grocery store owner continued at the time, “And then we’re going to go from there. So it’s been a wild couple weeks. I definitely wasn’t expecting this. I think it’s one of those things where you’re like, ‘Oh, something like this will never happen to me.’ And here I am.”
Nearly one week after the procedure, Joe revealed that he had been diagnosed with a “very low grade” astrocytoma. (Astrocytoma is a type of brain or spinal cord tumor that may result in headaches, seizures, nausea or changes in mood or behavior, according to the Mayo Clinic.)
“They did get the whole thing,” he said in his video update shared on Wednesday, August 12. “When it comes to malignant brain tumors, they don’t know what’s left over, so I will be going on treatment, which is just a pill every day for the rest of my life to put the bad cells to sleep and hopefully they stay asleep.”
