On Sunday (Dec. 21), TMZ reported that supermodel and video vixen, Anok Yai, has been suffering in silence with a problem she’s had since birth: A lung defect. Yai, who shared a post of her hospital stay on Instagram, goes into horrifying detail about the issues she’s been facing. “For the past year, I’ve been dealing with this silent battle,” she begins the lengthy post. “I incidentally found out I had a Congenital defect overworking my heart and slowly destroying my lungs.”
“What started as something asymptomatic for the majority of my life turned into a lingering cough, which turned to chest pains, bouts of coughing up blood, then at times struggling to breathe,” Yai continued. “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.” However, on a lighter note, the model recently had a successful robotic lung surgery.
“I’ve always thought I could outwork or outrun anything,” Yai says
While she’s on the mend, she wants her supporters to know that you can’t “outwork or outrun anything” and that the “universe has a way of slowing you down” so it can wake you up. “I am forever grateful for Dr. Harmik Soukiasian and everyone at the @beverlyhillsconciergehealth for discovering my condition. Thank you to all the doctors and amazing nurses at @nyulangone And thank you to my friends and family for being the first thing I saw when I woke up For now I’m healing … but I’ll be back. See ya ❤️”
Raised in South Sudan, Anok Yai made history as the second model, after Naomi Campbell, to open a runway show for Prada. She’s been on the cover of Vogue nearly three times and featured in dozens of spreads for other high-profile fashion magazines. Prior to breaking into the modeling industry, she pursued a degree in biochemistry from Plymouth State University and was working toward a career as a doctor. She was eventually discovered after a photographer shared a picture of her attending Howard University’s 2017 homecoming weekend on his social media profile.
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