The Real Housewives of Orange County star Jeana Keough’s daughter, Kara Keough, has revealed her mom’s prognosis after finishing chemotherapy for tongue cancer.
“Jeana is home and recovering,” Kara, 37, wrote in an update on Jeana’s GoFundMe page on Friday, July 31. “She’s done with chemo and only has 2 days of radiation left! After next week’s treatment, she’ll be able to start recovering.”
Kara added that Jeana, 70, is “continuing to lose weight” but is “getting stronger than she was before the feeding tube was placed.”
She continued, “Her boyfriend Thomas, [Kara’s brother] Colton and I have been in a rotation of care, and she’s being monitored by at least one of us at all times. She isn’t speaking right now, or swallowing anything, but she’s making her thoughts known via texts. She’s still trying to take care of everyone else, but we’re trying to remind her that her priority needs to be her recovery.”
Looking ahead to the future, Kara noted that Jeana will “likely” spend “two to six months” with a feeding tube “in the hopes that she regains function to swallow the necessary nutrition and hydration.”
Kara concluded, “It’ll be an uphill climb and even with all this treatment, it’s still only a 40 to 60% chance for total and complete healing within the next five years.”
Kara revealed Jeana’s cancer diagnosis last month while creating a fundraiser to help pay for treatment.
“A few months ago, while visiting Shane and me in Florida, my mom mentioned a painful spot on her tongue,” Kara wrote via the GoFundMe page. “She assumed a tooth had been rubbing against it and had even gone to the dentist multiple times to have the tooth filed down. I asked her how long the sore had been there. She paused, thought about it, and realized it had been nearly a year.”
A biopsy found squamous cell carcinoma on Jeana’s tongue.
“After surgery to remove the cancer, we were hopeful that the hardest part was behind her. But when doctors recommended a second surgery to remove lymph nodes, they discovered the cancer had spread,” Kara continued. “What we thought would be a one-time surgery became a full cancer battle. Jeana is now in her fifth week of chemotherapy, radiation, and immunotherapy. The treatments are relentless.”
In a follow-up Instagram post on July 21, Kara wrote that Jeana had a DVT clot in her leg, as well as an infection, which forced her to postpone surgery to get a feeding tube. Jeana was cleared for the surgery a few days later, but she was still experiencing severe “tongue and throat pain,” Kara shared on July 27.
Kara rose to fame alongside Jeana when their family appeared on RHOC from 2006 to 2010. During an exclusive interview with Us last month, she revealed how she would react if her mom told her she wanted to return to reality TV.
“At this point in my life with my mom? I would give her anything that she wants,” Kara said. “If that would make her happy, I would agree to it because I’ll do anything for her.”
