Supermodel Anok Yai revealed she has been diagnosed with a congenital lung defect that’s been “overworking my heart and slowly destroying my lungs.”
“For the past year I’ve been dealing with this silent battle,” Yai, 28, wrote in her Friday Instagram post, alongside several clips of her recovery in the hospital.
Noting that she had been “asymptomatic for the majority of my life,” the model told her followers that she discovered the health issue after she developed a “lingering cough.”
“[The cough] turned to chest pains, bouts of coughing up blood, then at times struggling to breathe,” she recalled.
“I chose to work through this while trying to find the right doctor and the right time. I quickly realized there was never going to be a ‘right time’ —my health would continue to worsen.”
While she initially believed she could “outwork or outrun” her problem, she soon realized that “the universe has a way of slowing you down and waking you up.”
She continued: “So, yesterday I had a successful robotic lung surgery thanks to Dr. Robert Cerfolio and his gracious and talented team who I am forever indebted to for giving me more time.”
Robotic thoracic surgery is “a type of minimally invasive surgery used in thoracic procedures for some lung cancer cases,” according to the American Lung Association.
“It can be used to remove diseased lung tissue and possibly surrounding lymph nodes.”
“I am forever grateful for Dr. Harmik Soukiasian and everyone at the @beverlyhillsconciergehealth for discovering my condition,” Yai continued, thanking her medical team.
She gave a special thank you shout to her nurses at NYU’s Langone hospital, where she was treated, and to her friends and family “for being the first thing I saw when I woke up.”
