Dance Moms alum Abby Lee Miller opened up about a recent visit to the ICU that took a “very serious” turn.
Miller, 59, got emotional as she spoke to the Daily Mail about the health scare, which occurred over the summer while she was abroad in the U.K. “I was at the end of my [Abby Lee Spills the Tea] tour … and I started to have trouble with my catheter,” she explained in an interview published Monday, September 23. “It just needed to be changed. Every month I need to get it changed.”
Miller was diagnosed with Burkitt lymphoma, an aggressive form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, in 2018 and has used a wheelchair ever since. She told Daily Mail that a nurse was with her while traveling for the tour, but “she didn’t feel comfortable” changing the catheter in the room they were in.
“I don’t know why, people do it all the time,” Miller continued. “I held off for a day, which was a mistake. Then my back started hurting and my kidneys. I was screaming in pain.”
Paramedics were called by Miller’s assistants, and she was brought to a nearby hospital. “With the wonderful free healthcare there … I laid in the emergency room for five and a half hours waiting for someone to change the catheter,” she claimed. “I became [septic], and it went up in my kidneys.”
At first, Miller was confused by the staff’s questions. “I was making fun of them,” she recalled. “I was like, ‘Why are we discussing this? I just need my catheter changed. Can you get me out of here?’ I was [supposed to be] flying home the next day.”
Instead of returning to the U.S., Miller found herself hooked up to hospital machines with multiple IVs in her arms and neck. She was later brought “to another department” for a sonogram, which triggered some alarm bells.
“The last time I did something like that, it was for a blood clot,” she said. “I thought to myself, ‘Oh, my God, I think I have a blood clot.'”
Miller remained in the ICU for four days, and it was determined that a UTI led to her contracting sepsis. “My blood sugar was dropping. … Women need to be very careful because a UTI can do a lot of damage. It can do a lot of different things,” she noted. “It was very serious. … If I would have changed the catheter the night before, none of this would have happened.”
Though Miller joked that her hospital stay “could be an SNL skit” — “I had a TV remote control hanging out of my neck” — she also said an unexpected silver lining came from the ordeal. Delaying her travel back home freed up time for a meeting with a “top-notch television station” that she wouldn’t have been able to squeeze in otherwise.
“I snapped back,” she said. “My girlfriend from Pittsburgh told me, ‘I have not yet decided [whether] you are the unluckiest person in the world or the luckiest in the world.'”
Along with her cancer battle and other health struggles, Miller has faced a number of personal challenges since Dance Moms launched her to reality TV stardom. She was sentenced to one year and one day in prison after being convicted of fraud in May 2017. Following her release, many of her former Abby Lee Dance Company students — including Maddie Ziegler and Chloe Lukasiak — have distanced themselves from the controversial instructor.
A reunion special with many of the original Dance Moms stars aired earlier this year and a reboot premiered on Hulu — both without Miller’s involvement. Despite her ups and downs, Miller isn’t ready to throw in the towel.
“I think that I have a lot to do. … I have a lot more choreography. I have a lot more kids to teach,” she told Daily Mail. “I have a lot more social awareness about being in a chair.”