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Two months after announcing his divorce from Theresa Nist, The Golden Bachelor's titular star, Gerry Turner, revealed that one factor in his breakup was a shocking cancer diagnosis. Their relationship was already challenging, as Nist, 71, lives in New Jersey while Turner resides in Indiana.
"As Theresa and I were trying very hard to find our lifestyle and where we were going to live and how we were going to make our life work, I was unfortunately diagnosed with cancer," he revealed in an interview with People publishedon Wednesday, December 11.
The diagnosis came about when Turner went to an orthopedic surgeon for a shoulder injury that had long been bothering him. Blood tests revealed a slow-growing bone marrow cancer called Waldenström's macroglobulinemia, which Turner called a "really long name."
"Unfortunately, there's no cure for it. So that weighs heavily in every decision I make," he told the outlet.
While he was "in denial" for a while, he realized eventually that he wanted his life to be "as normal as possible." To Turner, this meant "spending time with my family, my two daughters, my two son-in-laws, my granddaughters."
Turner said that Nist was "a little bit awestruck by the news," but that her reaction was "so understandable." Ultimately, he explained, "the importance of finding the way with Theresa was still there, but it became less of a priority."
Turner hopes that this information will help fans of both him and Nist understand their decision to split. "When you are hit with that kind of news, [...] you realize what's important to you, that's where you start to move forward," he noted. "I hope that people understand [...] that that had a huge bearing on my decisions and I think probably Theresa's as well. Hopefully they'll look at things a little bit differently, that maybe it wasn't quite a rash, fast decision that people thought."
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