Serena Williams’ husband and Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian has revealed that he had half his thyroid removed.
On Thanksgiving, the father of two, 41, shared an update on his health with fans on social media, saying he underwent preventative surgery after “tracking some suspicious nodules” in the last four years.
“The nodules were getting bigger & the latest biopsy revealed they’d very likely turn cancerous,” he wrote on Instagram.
“My mom had breast cancer around this age (41) and then ultimately died from brain cancer a decade or so later. I hate cancer.”
Noting that the procedure “was smooth,” Ohanian highlighted just how important it is for people to be alert about their health.
“My now-removed-half-of-thyroid was indeed full of some gnarly nodules that were very likely to become cancerous,” he wrote, alongside a post-surgery selfie from the hospital bed.
He also included two images of his daughters, Olympia, 6, and Adira, 1, in the carousel post.
“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 went on.
“To my fellow men — make those doctor’s appointments — especially if y’all are dads. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.”
It comes after Ohanian revealed his Lyme disease diagnosis in July, saying doctors caught it after he underwent a full-body scan.
“Doing a full battery of health scans, tests, etc, and found out I have lyme disease,” he wrote on X.
“Wild. No symptoms, thankfully, but gonna treat. Good cholesterol is too low. Bad cholesterol is just OK. Gotta work on that. On the plus-side: 822 ng/dL total + 162 ng/dL free testosterone.”
Ohanian added that the diagnosis caught him by surprise.
Lyme disease is “an illness caused by borrelia bacteria,” according to The Mayo Clinic. People typically get Lyme disease from the bite of a tick carrying the bacteria.
Early-stage Lyme symptoms include headaches, flu-like symptoms, joint pain, fatigue and sometimes a rash, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
More than 470,000 Americans are diagnosed with Lyme disease each year, the CDC notes.
