The event planner and TV star opens up about the challenges of parenting during cancer treatment — and how it's changed her priorities as a mom
In March 2023 Real Housewives of Miami star Guerdy Abraira was diagnosed with stage 1b breast cancer.
Three months later, the reality star had a lumpectomy to remove a cancerous tumor in her left breast, followed by four sessions of chemotherapy and later 20 rounds of radiation, which often left Abraira weak and depleted.
“Chemo will show you your mortality in three seconds,” she says. “It’s no game. For ten days [after each treatment] I was in bed. Chemo fog is real and I walked like a skeleton—it felt like my bones were about to break.”
One of the biggest challenges for the RHOM star was handling her role as a mother during such a vulnerable period in her life. “I didn’t want my boys to see me in my weakened state,” says Abraira, who’s mom to Miles, 17, and Liam, 11.
“I’m a party planner, so I control everything,” says Abraira, 46, who’s CEO and founder of Guerdy Design, an event-planning business that produces high end weddings, bar mitzvahs and high profile parties around the world. “My whole life is organized and I control my environment, I control what I get to do, I control everything about me.”
“But the cancer was so uncontrollable,” she says, “and I had no idea how to deal with it. 'You have an appointment tomorrow. You need to get another shot. Did you take your pills? They need to do another scan.' It’s like you can’t do anything.”
“So I secluded myself in my primary bedroom,” explains Abraira. “So I was literally in my room the entire time, except maybe once in a while when I could walk down the steps of our two-story house, trying to hang on for dear life.”
Describing her bedroom like a “hospital room,” Guerdy’s two sons came to check in on their mother everyday. “They were like, ‘How are you doing?’ Come to me, Mommy. Come hug me!”
During evenings and weekends, the family gathered in the bedroom to hang out together. “We’d play charades together on the bed,” she says. “Or we’d watch movies, all four of us, from my bed.”
Cancer free since November, Abraira has cut back her event planning schedule dramatically and is savoring family time at home with her husband, Russell, and her two sons. “I’m obsessed with my life right now,” she says. “I’m up in my kids’ business all day long, every day. We’re closer than ever.”
In August, the family ventured out to Miles’ favorite burger restaurant to celebrate his 17th birthday, and later went bowling.
“It’s all about quality, not quantity, and intimacy as a family," she says. "We're so close and it is so nice waking up knowing that Liam's in his room and Miles is over there."
And she's celebrating being there for all the milestones.
"My older son, Miles, is in his last year of high school and I went college-touring with him," she says. "My youngest son, Liam, is playing basketball and I am at all the games. It feels so good being there versus just seeing a video."
“I know my kids,” Abraira says. “I am now catching up on all the times that I wasn’t around.”
