'Married at First Sight' relationship expert Mel Schilling makes courageous statement amid colon cancer battle

‘Married at First’ relationship expert Mel Schilling has shared an update on her cancer journey as she continues to undergo treatment.

The 52-year-old dating coach, who reality TV fans will regconise from the expert panel on both ‘Married at First Sight UK’ and ‘Married at First Sight Australia’, was diagnosed with colon cancer in December.

Sharing her news on Instagram in the week before Christmas, she said: "This week I had planned to travel to Northern Ireland with my family to spend Christmas with loved ones.

“Instead tomorrow morning I'm checking in to hospital to have an operation to remove a 5cm tumour in my colon, a tumour that had it gone undetected for much longer would have killed me.

"Getting rid of Terry (what I’ve named my tumour) will be the best present of all. I just wanted to finish by saying that if something doesn’t feel right, please, please don’t ignore it and if you don’t think the answers you have got are right, keep going until you do, it might just save your life."

Colon cancer is a variant of bowel cancer, and Schilling will undergo an operation to have a tumour removed. According to Cancer Research UK, around 42,000 people are diagnosed with bowel cancer every year.

Schilling, who has now become an ambassador for the colorectal charity Occtopus, spoke to UK's Magic FM on ealier this week and said that her chemotherapy treatment, which she began in February, is beginning to make her feel poorly.

When asked how she was, she replied: “I'm feeling a little flat today actually, to be totally honest with you.” She also shared that she is now on her third cycle of chemotherapy.

She went on: "I'm on my third cycle now and I'm just starting to feel a bit sick," she said. It sort of feels like being hangover, like I've been drinking all night. That's kind of how I feel."

Going on to speak about she has not stopped working on either the Australian or UK version of hugely popular reality TV dating show ‘Married at First Sight’ amid her cancer diagnosis, she courageously added: "This thing is not beating me. I'm here to fight, I just need to make some adaptions."

Schilling previously spoke about the huge amount of pain she was in before her cancer diagnosis. Speaking to new! magazine last month, she recalled the severe pain she was in while at work in Austrailia, telling the publication: “I was doubled over and shouting - the pain was so intense.”

Doctors initially told her that her symptoms were constipation, but she became concerned when she lost her appetite and her pain persisted. She explained that she was in “so much pain” and struggled to keep down food or water.

She then went to see a gastroenterologist after returning to London, who she said was “concerned” about her unexplained weight loss and sent her for a CT scan. It was then in mid-December that Schilling was told she had cancer.

Opening up about the moment she was told, she said: “We were sitting in his office and the doctor had a blank look and I thought ‘this doesn't seem right’ and he said ‘it's cancer’. I think I was numb, I didn't process it and I went into work mode, that's all I could focus on.”