Julie Chrisley experienced a cancer scare while in prison, according to her daughter Savannah Chrisley.
On the Tuesday, March 5, episode of her “Unlocked With Savannah Chrisley” podcast, Savannah, 26, shared a journal entry her mom wrote after a recent doctor visit.
“I sat down with the doctor and she proceeds to tell me that my HCG level was high, 10.2,” Savannah read from Julie’s entry. “This is a pregnancy hormone, it should not be that high. If it were a little higher, I would test positive on a pregnancy test. Since that’s not a possibility, it could be a sign of a tumor. I literally fell apart. How could this be happening? I’m going to have blood work redone and have a scan. I’ve not told anyone, I’m not going to until I know what’s going on. I’m so scared, I just want my husband, I don’t know if I can do this without him.”
Julie, 51, is currently serving a reduced five-year prison sentence in Kentucky after being convicted on federal tax fraud alongside her husband, Todd Chrisley. Todd, 54, is currently serving his reduced 10-year sentence in the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Pensacola in Florida.
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As Savannah continued reading her mom’s diary entries, listeners got a sense of Julie’s mindset as she prepares to undergo more tests. “This is so scary navigating my health journey all alone,” Julie wrote. “I miss Todd so much.”
While Julie said the elevated HCG levels may also indicate a hernia, the health scare left Savannah reliving her mom’s 2012 breast cancer diagnosis. Julie had a double mastectomy and underwent a hysterectomy before sharing she was in remission.
“To think of her sitting there worrying about, ‘Oh, my God, my cancer may be back,’” Savannah said while getting emotional. “And something that has stayed so steadfast in every single letter is, ‘I just want my husband. I just want Todd. I miss him.’”
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Another letter that caught Savannah’s attention was Julie’s memory of going to the prison’s medical unit for a flu shot. While visiting, Julie said she asked to get her blood pressure checked.
After her request was denied, Julie wrote, “I’m worth more to my family dead than I am alive.” The sentiment left Savannah devastated.
“As her daughter reading these things, first off, Mom suffers from high blood pressure really, really bad,” Savannah shared. “All she wanted was her blood pressure checked and they wouldn’t even do that. And to hear your mother say she’s worth more dead than alive is probably the most heartbreaking thing anyone could ever hear. I know that my mother has made such an impact on so many people’s lives and that’s worth more than anything else.”
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Although Julie’s last letter was dated February 20, Savannah said she is willing to continue sharing her mom’s journal entries as they come in.
Until then, Savannah is comforted by the fact that her mom continues to put her family first during challenging times.
“All I can say is I’ve never been so proud to call my mom ‘Mom,’” she said. “I see her strength and her resilience and her humor and heart and everything. She is everything that I love and everything that I hope to be. So reading these letters and knowing her struggle about how she’s worrying about her kids and her husband, it just brings me so much peace knowing that’s the woman my mother is.”
