The latest Big Ang update in the Mob Wives star’s ongoing battle with cancer comes from Angela Raiola herself, who sat with Dr. Oz for an episode of his show which aired today. Big Ang opened up about the shock she felt when she received her diagnosis of stage four brain and lung cancer, and discussed how the diagnosis is affecting her family. Dr. Oz also asked the question that’s been on Big Ang’s fans’ minds for weeks: What is her prognosis?
The first in the current Big Ang update series came in December, when Angela announced that her cancer had returned. It was only two weeks ago, though, when Ang’s sister announced that the diagnosis was much worse than feared: not only had Big Ang’s cancer spread to her brain and lungs, it had also advanced to stage four, and was no longer responding to chemotherapy.
At that point, the family launched a GoFundMe page to help defray the costs of the alternative treatment that Big Ang needed to try; the day that the Big Ang update involved news of her forthcoming interview with Dr. Oz, her GoFundMe drive nearly doubled its intended goal.
A full video of Ang’s interview isn’t yet available, but three clips have made their way online. The first is the official trailer for the episode, which Dr. Oz tweeted out just a few hours ago:
Today, we go inside @BigAngOfficial‘s battle with stage 4 lung and brain cancer and her fight to stay alive.https://t.co/H5Sv0arrya
— Dr. Mehmet Oz (@DrOz) February 16, 2016
“They found stage four brain and lung cancer,” Ang shares, “[and] it’s destroying me….I can’t believe what I look like. Instead of getting better, it’s getting worse.” Dr. Oz then asks the question all of Big Ang’s fans have been fearing since news broke of her cancer’s advance: “Do you have any chance of surviving?” The trailer doesn’t answer that question, but another clip, in which Big Ang describes the moment she received her diagnosis, does: “I couldn’t hear, like, what they were saying,” Ang says. I couldn’t even understand. I feel like I went deaf. ‘You have stage four brain cancer and lung cancer. We don’t know how this happened.’ I’m like, I can’t hear, I can’t even hear this.” Dr. Oz then asks: “Did they give you a prognosis?” “They said…you have to go to another doctor. You have to find a brain doctor,” Ang replied, ticking the items off on her fingers. “A lung doctor. An oncologist. Chemo. I was like, this is going too fast for me. Now I’m just hysterical.” The most heartwrenching part of the Big Ang update is when Angela talks about her relationship with her family–and, in particular, her grandchildren: “I stay positive; I try to stay positive,” Angela explains, when asked how she deals with her cancer. “I look at my kids, and my grandchildren…and I know how much they need me.” At that point, Ang breaks down, explaining that her daughter and son-in-law and their children live with her. “My son’s kids always sleep over,” she adds, fighting back further tears.
UPDATE–Big Ang further revealed that she has split from her former husband, Neil Murphy, because “he never stepped up to the plate” and supported her Angela revealed. “So I was done with it. Now, it’s too late. I would rather be by myself. I would rather be alone.”
Unfortunately, her split from Neil was not the only shocking revelation that Big Ang shared during her interview with Dr. Oz. Angela also said that her chances of survival are 30 percent. Because chemotherapy didn’t work, Ang is resorting to immunotherapy–a treatment which, according to the American Cancer Society, “uses certain parts of a person’s immune system to fight diseases” by both “stimulating [the patient’s] own immune system to work harder or smarter to attack cancer cells” and “giving [the patient] immune system components, such as man-made immune system proteins.”
To see the Dr. Oz Big Ang episode, check local air times on Dr. Oz’s web site.
(Photo credits: Big Ang update via Dr. Oz)
