Anna, the wife of former South Korea footballer Park Joo-ho, has revealed that her breast cancer was diagnosed at stage 3 and had already spread to the lymph nodes under her arm, and that she can no longer breastfeed after treatment.
According to Maeil Business News, Anna shared the details in a video posted on October 29 on her YouTube channel, Anna With Anna, in which she detailed her journey from diagnosis to chemotherapy and surgery.
Anna said searching online before a firm diagnosis was her early mistake, and she urged others not to repeat it. She had reassured herself that her case would not be serious, expecting stage 1 at best and stage 2 at worst. “I thought it wouldn’t be that serious. I thought it would be stage 1, or stage 2 at worst, but I was in huge shock when I was actually diagnosed with stage 3,” she said, according to the report.
Because the cancer was stage 3, it had spread to the lymph nodes in her armpit, Anna explained. Those nodes had to be removed, and she said almost none remain now. She was initially told her breast would have to be removed entirely, but the operation was ultimately performed in a way that preserved its outward appearance as much as possible, leaving only a small scar.
The lasting effect she spoke about most plainly was breastfeeding. “Now I cannot breastfeed. The inner tissue no longer functions properly, because that part was removed,” she said. She added that a follow-up operation may be needed in about 10 years, leaving roughly seven years from now.
The disclosure comes as Anna is pregnant with her fourth child. She announced the pregnancy in August, saying she had gone ahead only after discussing it thoroughly with her doctors and receiving confirmation that it was safe. She revealed then that her cancer had been triple-negative and that she had been in complete remission for just over three years.
Anna, who was born in Switzerland, married Park Joo-ho in 2015. The couple and their three children, Na-eun, Gun-hoo and Jin-woo, rose to fame on KBS’s “The Return of Superman,” and Anna first went public with her breast cancer battle in 2022. Her latest video adds new specifics to that history: the stage 3 diagnosis, the lymph node removal, and a frank account of what treatment took away.
