VH1 reality star and fan favorite Angela “Big Ang” Raiola lost her battle to cancer on Thursday, February 18, 2016 at 3:01 am. She was diagnosed with stage 4 brain and lung cancer just last month.
In March 2015, Big Ang’s party life came to a halt when she was first diagnosed with stage 2 throat cancer after 40 years of smoking cigarettes. In an interview with People magazine, the former bar owner said she quit the day her doctor told her her smoking had caused the illness:
“Things happen for a reason,” says Big Ang. “I’d smoked for 40 years. No one could tell me what to do. I quit smoking the day I found out. [The tumor] was blocking my airway”.
Her husband of 6 years, Neil Murphy, also quit smoking. A week after her diagnosis, Big Ang underwent an 8 hour surgery on the left side of her throat to have a tumor the size of a lemon removed from her throat. In June 2015, she underwent surgery again on the right side of her throat.
“If I had known, I might have picked the treatments. It feels like they cut my head off and put it back on.
“It’s hard to just put down the cigarette and never look back. I enjoyed smoking. I miss it so much. But it’s over,” she says. “Now I do the e-cigarette. It helps me, just to hold it in my hand.”
Ang told interviewers she regretted choosing the surgery over chemotherapy treatments. In December 2015, Ang’s cancer returned after a lump was found in her throat during a routine checkup. The lump was diagnosed as cancerous and signs of cancer had spread to various parts of her body.
In January 2016, it had spread to her brain and right lung. She was diagnosed with stage 4 brain and lung cancer. Watch Ang discuss her reaction to her final diagnosis on the next page.