Yolanda Foster and several of her Real Housewives of Beverly Hills co-stars jetted off to NYC this week to attend the Global Lyme Alliance’s “Uniting for a Lyme-Free World” gala event. During a speech, Yolanda revealed that her daughter Bella Hadid and her son Anwar were both diagnosed with Lyme Disease in 2012!
At the dinner Yolanda was given an award for her work to help find a cure for the disease and shared with the crowd, “When my two youngest children, Bella and Anwar, were diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease in early 2012, watching my babies struggle in silence in order to support me in my journey, struck the deepest core of hopelessness inside of me.”
She added, “I honestly don’t have the proper words in my vocabulary to describe to you the darkness, the pain and the unknown hell I’ve lived these past four years. This award is for Anwar and Bella. This is my token and my promise to you that I will not allow you to live a life of pain and suffering. I will walk to the end of the earth to find a cure so that you can live a healthy life that you deserve. No child should suffer the way that you do … I thank you both for your extraordinary selflessness during this journey. Your unwavering love and compassion has kept me alive and fighting through the darkest days of my life.”
According to the NY Daily News, Gigi also shared with the crowd what life has been like for Yolanda since being diagnosed. Yolanda previously shared that she had lost the ability to read and write, but Gigi says it was even worse. “She couldn’t drive, she never wanted music being played. She couldn’t watch TV, she would cry herself to sleep because she was in too much pain to come to my volleyball games and couldn’t read a full page of a book without having to return to the top to remember what happened.”
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Yolanda’s co-star Kyle Richards, and Beverly Hills newbies Kathryn Edwards and Erika Jayne were also on hand to support her. Filming wraps up for the new season of RHOBH this month, so it’s possible (and likely) that the event was filmed for the show.
TELL US – ARE YOU SURPRISED TO HEAR BOTH OF YOLANDA’S KIDS HAVE LYME DISEASE?
Photo Credit: Ivan Nikolov/WENN.com
