Sandra Lee Gives Devastating Details About Recovering From Surgery

As reality TV chef Sandra Lee may well attest to, every new year can bring on new challenges. The star seemed to be on a positive path at the beginning of 2021, as she wanted to shed some weight and took to Instagram to share her health goals. By the time July rolled around, the star revealed that she only had five pounds left to shed. That's not too shabby, considering that her original weight loss goal was 30 pounds.

Longtime fans of Lee know that she's also a breast cancer survivor. She explained to Coping that after she was diagnosed in 2015, she "wanted to be as aggressive as they were going to let me be." She wasn't going to take chances and revealed why she chose to have a double mastectomy. "I decided to get the double mastectomy because I didn't want to wait and have the percentage of it coming back or developing in the other breast," she said. The celeb also waited five years before reconstructive surgery, because Lee wanted to give her body a chance to heal before it had to go through more trauma. But, in 2020, she was able to take the next step in her breast cancer recovery journey with reconstruction. Now, Lee is on another health journey and has shared how she's coping every step of the way.

On March 1, "Semi-Homemade Cooking" star Sandra Lee revealed that she was going to have a hysterectomy. She shared on Instagram that she was supposed to have the operation "several years ago" as a "follow up to my breast cancer surgery," but postponed it due to COVID-19. Lee then divulged that her gynecologist recently "noticed a change in some of my cells," she said. Lee did her due diligence and "went for a second and third opinion and they all confirmed the same." A day later, Lee thanked her "family, friends, sweet Ben and ALL OF YOU for the wonderful support" after her surgery. 

But in a March 4 update post, she wrote that "the third day for me is always the worst day for me." She continued, "All I can remember is I threw up all day — I was so sick, I threw up and cried, threw up and cried." Lee's fiancé Ben Youcef has been by her side through the difficult recovery. Lee revealed it was so brutal that "by 5 [p.m.] I was on my way to the hospital." Once they were there, Lee said the doctors discovered she had "some kind of infection" and found that her "kidneys were only working at 30%." She added, "We are waiting for culture and blood work!" It sounds as if Lee has been on a rollercoaster ride. Wishing her a speedy recovery!