“Golden Bachelor” Gerry Turner announced he has been diagnosed with cancer.
“There’s a topic that I haven’t wanted to talk about until now,” the reality TV star, 73, told People in a new interview published Wednesday.
“I think it’s time, also because it probably will clear up a lot of mystery around what happened back in February, March and April,” he added, referring to his decision to divorce wife Theresa Nist earlier this year after starring — and finding love — together on the hit ABC series.
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9 “As Theresa and I were trying very hard to find our lifestyle and where we were going to live and how we were going to make our life work, I was unfortunately diagnosed with cancer,” Turner shared.
The dad of two explained that he injured his shoulder while teaching a pickleball class three years ago —but did not see an orthopedic surgeon at the time.
“Finally, I got around to going [to the doctor] and the orthopedic surgeon said, ‘Yeah Gerry, there’s not much we can do for your shoulder, but there are some unusual blood markers here,’” he recounted.
“And so an orthopedic surgeon went to my family doctor, my family doctor referred me to an oncologist, and now I’m working with a hematology-oncology group in Fort Wayne.”
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9 Turner said he was then diagnosed with a slow-growing “bone marrow cancer” with a “really long name” called Waldenström’s macroglobulinemia.
According to the Dana-Fabar Cancer Institute, the disease is an uncommon blood cell cancer that mostly forms in the bone marrow and can slow normal blood cell growth, which can lead to anemia and a weakened immune system.
Turner sadly revealed that there is “no cure” for the cancer.
“It was like 10 tons of concrete were just dropped on me. And I was a bit in denial for a while, I didn’t want to admit to it,” he said.
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9 Due to the severity of his cancer, Turner said he wanted to spend more time with his two daughters and his grandchildren and that would mean less time for his new wife, Nist, 72.
“I wanted my life to continue on as normal as possible, and that led me to believing that as normal as possible more meant spending time with my family, my two daughters, my two sons in laws, my granddaughters,” he shared.
“The importance of finding the way with Theresa was still there, but it became less of a priority. When you are hit with that kind of news and the shock wears off after a few days or a few weeks and you regroup and you realize what’s important to you, that’s where you start to move forward.”
9 Turned said he hopes people will “understand in retrospect now” that the difficult news had “a huge bearing on my decisions and I think probably Theresa’s as well.”
In April, Nist and Turner announced they were “mutually” divorcing after only three months of marriage.
“Theresa and I have had a number of heart-to-heart conversations, and we’ve looked closely at our situation, our living situation, so forth, and we’ve kind of come to the conclusion mutually that it’s probably time for us to dissolve our marriage,” Turner said on “Good Morning America” at the time.
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