Jelena Batos after tumor surgery: refused radiation, chemo
The former reality show contestant says a 5.7 cm tumor was removed. Early results are good, but the biopsy is decisive, and she is still waiting for it.
Former reality show contestant Jelena Batos announced on Instagram that she has had a tumor of 5.7 centimeters removed, that the first results are good and that she is still waiting for the biopsy. In the same post she revealed something she had told no one until now: she refused radiation therapy, and she never took the chemotherapy drugs she was prescribed.
Batos photographed her test results and showed them to her followers, and described alongside them what she went through before the operation.
She refused radiation and skipped the chemotherapy
According to her, doctors insisted she undergo radiation therapy. She kept refusing, so they prescribed chemotherapy drugs to be taken for six months before the operation.
“You see this line, well, this line cost me worry and sleepless nights. Because of this line they demanded that I go for radiation, and of course I refused. Then they gave me chemo to take for six months before the operation, two therapies in the morning, two in the afternoon, two in the evening, and I did not take that either.”
So that was two therapies in each of three daily slots, and she took none of them. She says she hid the decision and told no one she was not taking the treatment.
Before the operation, she said, she told her family the truth. The aim was for those closest to her to know what decisions she had made in case something went wrong on the operating table.
“I went under the knife at my own risk. My mother cried because of me and my decisions, I threw everything into worry.”
Where the tumor is and what the results show
Batos says the tumor measured 5.7 centimeters and sat in the riskiest spot in her neck, in the area of the larynx. She says she kept it under control herself until the surgery.
Sources disagree about the location. Kurir writes about a brain tumor in its introduction, yet in the body of the article it quotes her post about the neck and larynx. Srpskainfo has the same mismatch: a brain tumor in the headline, and a neck near the larynx in the body text. In related headlines Kurir goes back to earlier descriptions of her illness, including one saying the tumor had reached the vocal cords and an artery, but the hospital and the doctors who operated on her are not named anywhere.
The first results are favorable, in her words. She calls the biopsy decisive.
“I still do not want to celebrate because more results are still to come and the biopsy is key.”
She thanked the doctors who operated on her, but added that she does not recommend that others do what she did. She was aware of the risks, she insists, and informed herself well before the operation.
Fear and exhaustion before the procedure
A separate post describes the morning of the surgery. Batos says she nearly did not go.
“I had my operation early this morning. Thank you to everyone who encouraged me, because I almost did not go to the operation. Some fear took hold of me, but mostly it was exhaustion, because how many times is this now that I have had an operation in the last three years.”
She wrote that many questions ran through her head, among them whether this was the last time she would do this and whether she had told her children everything she had on her heart. Those thoughts, she wrote, are heavier than the illness itself.
“A ton of questions went through my head: Is this the last time I do this, have I told my children everything I have on my heart… Those questions are worse than the illness, at least for me. But here I am, we go on. It hurts, it hurts a lot, but it will pass. Giving up is not an option.”
As of publication, it is not known when the biopsy result will arrive, and Batos has not said publicly what the next step of her treatment will be.
