Bachelorette Katie Thurston Is ‘Very Optimistic’ Amid Stage 4 Breast Cancer Battle (Exclusive)

Former “Bachelorette” Katie Thurston spoke to “Extra” at the Hot Pink Party fundraiser in NYC for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

She opened up about her battle with stage 4 breast cancer and her current treatment plan, revealing how she’s feeling.

“I probably feel the best I've felt in the last couple months,” she said. “I think the beginning stages of learning about your diagnosis and your treatment plan, and we ended up moving from L.A. to New York, it's been a whirlwind. But I'm now finally at a point where I have a team of doctors that I trust, a community of people that I'm surrounding myself with and building, and I feel good. All things considered, I feel really good.”

Katie said of her treatment, “I'm on what's called the first line of treatment: two daily pills, a monthly shot and we just essentially do that forever until it doesn't work, and then you go to the next line of treatment.”

She went on, “In a year, five years from now, if I have to change it, that's okay. I'm very optimistic in the medical advancements coming up in the next one year, five years, so as much as stage 4 can sound very scary, I feel very at peace with it and ready to just fight.”

The reality star also shared her first breast cancer symptom, saying, “I had a lump in my breast… I found that myself… I was at the time 33 when I found it and I ignored it because it was painful and that's the thing with the internet is you Google, ‘Is breast cancer painful?’ and, ‘Typically, no.’ Well, it is. It can be, and just because you're young doesn't mean it's not breast cancer. So, I kind of held off, thinking it's going to be a benign cyst, and then I finally go into the doctor and it went from stage 3 to stage 4 very quickly.”

Katie is hoping for more early intervention when it comes to breast cancer in the future. “I just think there's not enough education around women right now that you don't need to wait to be 40 to get checked. You should be checking when you're in your 20s and your 30s, and if it runs in your family what's that genetic testing look like, what schedule should you be following? There's so many things I'm learning for the first time this year at 34 as a stage 4 breast cancer patient, and I wish it was everything I was learning at age 30, prior to breast cancer.”

Thurston praised the BCRF mission, saying, “Organizations like this really offer that extra spark that people need when they're feeling the lowest they've ever felt.”

Plus, she opened up about how much her husband, comedian Jeff Arcuri, has supported her and their decision to move up the timeline on getting married.

“My husband I have to give a shout out to, of course,” Katie said. “He was supposed to be on a world tour and ended up canceling that for the last six weeks or so to be with me during the beginning stages of everything, which were, in my opinion, probably the hardest part… He's been phenomenal in just being by my side.”

Thurston shared of their wedding, “It was actually Jeff who led that conversation of, ‘I want to be married to you. I want to show you, like, in sickness and in health, I am here to stay,’ and it was just more of a personal gesture that he made for me. And of course I'm crying and it was, it was very special. So, we did a little courthouse wedding here in New York.”