Serena Williams’ husband, Alexis Ohanian, is on the mend after undergoing surgery on his thyroid.
“After tracking some suspicious nodules on my thyroid for the last 4 years, I recently got half of it surgically removed,” Ohanian, 41, captioned an Instagram post on Thursday, November 28. “The nodules were getting bigger & the latest biopsy revealed they’d very likely turn cancerous.”
Ohanian shared that his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was his age, and ultimately died from brain cancer “a decade or so later.”
“I hate cancer,” he continued. “I wasn’t gonna take any chances.”
He told Instagram followers that the surgery went “smooth” and he feels “extra grateful” this year after getting the results from his doctor.
“I got the call this morning that my now-removed-half-of-thyroid was indeed full of some gnarly nodules that were very likely to become cancerous,” he added. “The worst part tbh has been not being able to lift for 2 weeks but big fella will be back at it next week and I took my girls to Disney World this week, so life is wonderful.”
He concluded with a message to “fellow men” that they should go to the doctor and stay on top of their health “especially if y’all are dads,” he added.
Ohanian and Williams, 43, got married in November 2017. They share two daughters, 6-year-old Alexis Olympia and 15-month-old Adira River.
Earlier this year, Williams revealed that her first date with Ohanian in 2015 included both her agent and assistant. (The couple met in May 2015 when they stayed in the same Rome hotel and started dating shortly thereafter.)
“It was, like, two hours of interrogation and questions,” Ohanian recalled during Williams ESPN+ docuseries, In the Arena, released in August. “Do I have kids? Am I married?”
He noted that “nothing was off limits” when it came to their dinner. “Serena, her assistant, her agent and then me on the other side of the table and they just bombarded me with questions,” the tech mogul added.
Once he “passed the test,” Ohanian wanted to ask Williams out for real.
“The next day, I texted her, like, ‘Hey look, last night was fun, but I’m going to pick you up. We’re going to spend the day together in Paris and it’s just going to be us,’” he said.
