The Bachelorette alum Katie Thurston has shared a new update on her journey battling cancer.
ADVERTISEMENT
Katie recently took to Instagram and shared the latest on her cancer care and treatment, which includes "injections that suppress my ovaries, an aromatase inhibitor, and a CDK4/6 inhibitor."
Katie said she had to figure out the right "recipe" of those three medications, which resulted in her pausing one or two of them, since her liver was "having issues."
"Technically, this is still a first-line of treatment. For stage 4, you go through a lot of recipes in your lifetime because you'll be on treatment for a lifetime," Katie explained.
"I do believe that the cure is within my lifetime for breast cancer. I like to think of my future as optimistic in the future of breast-cancer care. I did just have a recent PET scan and I was really hoping today would be the day that I got no evidence of disease. It's a little gray, as cancer care tends to be."
ADVERTISEMENT
Katie explained how a PET scan lights up areas where there is cancer and inflammation in the body, and her scan showed a potentially worrisome increase of lights on the right side.
Katie, however, said she didn't know people are supposed to avoid exercise prior to a PET scan and she had played volleyball for hours beforehand. Katie therefore said it's possible the scan could've lit up due inflammation from exercise, not disease.
"It's possible all that serving and hitting made that inflammation happen again," she noted.
"But also, we just had to do what's called an FES scan -- and what that's going to do is it's going to find any uptake of estradiol or hormones, because that's what my cancer feeds off of."
Katie said her scan is scheduled for October 13, which happens to be Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day.
ADVERTISEMENT
"I find that very fitting. Overall, all is well and all is stable," she said.
The Bachelor alum said she'll share the results of her scans later this month.
"Hopefully one day I'll get to announce no evidence of active disease, which is what anyone who is stage 4 strives for," she concluded.
In a subsequent post, Katie revealed that she won't be able to get pregnant with her husband Jeff Arcuri.
"But we also only have 2 embryos, which are never a guarantee. Removal [of my ovaries] was a permanent decision I wasn't ready to make. Instead, I get quarterly injections to suppress them," Katie shared.
ADVERTISEMENT
Last month, Katie revealed she had chin liposuction as she continues to battle breast cancer.
"After so many required medical surgeries, I decided to do one for myself," Katie wrote via Instagram Stories at the time.
"I'm all about transparency. Never had Botox. Never had filler. But today I did in fact have chin lipo."
Katie was diagnosed with breast cancer in February 2025, and then she found out it had spread to her liver in March 2025.
Katie revealed in July 2026 -- three months after she underwent a double mastectomy -- that she needed a liver biopsy.
ADVERTISEMENT
Although her liver had shown "no evidence of disease" this past spring, she said doctors were "at a loss" as to why her liver enzymes were elevated amid her cancer treatment.
Katie recently said her goal is "turning pain into purpose" by helping other women going through a similar situation.
"My medicine is working. My tumor is shrinking. My energy is coming back and I feel good," Katie shared in a "Grave Conversations" YouTube interview in July.
"Some people like to use the word 'terminal,' but I don't identify with the word 'terminal' because that's such a morbid word. I don't want to think of a timeline over my head."
Katie admitted she was in a "dark depression" for a little bit but she knows she has "a lot to live for," regardless of how much time she has left.
In the meantime, Katie and her comedian husband are planning for their first child and keeping busy renovating their new house.
Katie, who competed on Matt James' The Bachelor season before starring on The Bachelorette's seventeenth season, hard launched her relationship with Jeff in June 2024. She announced at the time, "Safe to say he's making it to hometowns next week," which was a nod to her prior The Bachelorette stint in 2021.
Katie and Jeff got engaged in August 2024, and then Katie moved from California to New York for Jeff and her cancer treatments.
Katie and Jeff tied the knot in an intimate backyard wedding in March 2025, and Katie said they'll have a bigger wedding after she beats cancer.
"He is proving that he's here to stay. He shows up every day and he does it in ways that just continue to surprise," Katie gushed to Us Weekly of Jeff last year.
Prior to falling in love with Jeff, Katie had a short-lived engagement to her The Bachelorette 17 winner Blake Moynes.
ADVERTISEMENT
Katie's The Bachelorette season ended on ABC in August 2021, and then she and Blake -- a Canadian wildlife specialist -- announced their breakup only a couple of months later in October 2021.
Katie then went public with her romance with John Hersey, whom she had eliminated during Week 2 of her The Bachelorette journey, in November 2021. She was accused of moving on from Blake quickly with "a rebound" and emotionally cheating on her ex-fiance.
Katie and John split after less than one year together in June 2022, and Katie expressed on numerous occasions how John dumped her after she had allegedly given the relationship everything she had.
After ending her relationship with John, Katie made a cameo on Bachelor in Paradise's ninth season in 2023 and found closure with Blake, who remained her friend post-show.
Katie then she decided to pursue a unique opportunity and look for love on FBoy Island.
Katie had a brief public relationship with FBoy Island's Vince Xu, but Katie announced their breakup in December 2023.