Maria Menounos is stepping down from her anchor role at E! News as she faces treatment for a brain tumor. 
 
 Menounos, 39, told People magazine she was diagnosed with a tumor in April and recently underwent a seven-hour surgery to remove the golf-ball sized growth. Menounos’ diagnosis came as her mother, Litsa Menounos, is battling brain cancer. 
 
 “I am so grateful for the past three years at E!, I had such an amazing time co-hosting with Jason Kennedy and working everyday with the wonderful roster of talent on the show including producers, staff and crew,” said Menounos. “It was such a special, good-hearted group and one I’ll always consider family. A special thank you to [NBCUniversal Cable’s] Frances Berwick and [E! president] Adam Stotsky for all the support they have shown me through the years especially during these tough times. I will truly miss everyone and looking forward to this next chapter in my life.” 
 
 Menounos has been with the E! News team since 2014. She worked as a correspondent for “Access Hollywood” and “Today” before landing the co-anchor slot on the syndicated newsmagazine “Extra.” 
 
 Menounos has also been active in the technology arena, promoting innovations and new companies through her personal newsletter and her daily “Conversations with Maria Menounos” series on SiriusXM. It’s unclear if she will continue her hosting duties on SiriusXM. She has also chronicled her mother’s fight with stage four glioblastoma on her personal platforms. 
 
 Menounos told People that she is still recovering from the surgery that successfully removed almost all of the tumor. 
 
 “My face is still numb,” Menounos told People. “This is something that takes at least a month of healing, but I’m getting stronger and stronger every day and I’ll be back to normal very soon.” ||||| As she was caring for her mother, who has stage 4 brain cancer, Maria Menounos found out she was facing a health crisis of her own. 
 
 In February, the TV and Sirius XM radio host started experiencing troubling symptoms. “I’d been getting lightheaded on set and having headaches,” she tells PEOPLE in the magazine’s exclusive new cover story. “My speech had gotten slurred and I was having difficulty reading the teleprompter.” 
 
 Get push notifications with news, features and more. 
 
 An MRI revealed Menounos had a golf-ball-size meningioma brain tumor that was pushing on her facial nerves. “I didn’t cry. I actually laughed,” she recalls. “It’s so surreal and crazy and unbelievable that my mom has a brain tumor—and now I have one too?” 
 
 With support from her fiancé Keven Undergaro, whom she got engaged to in March 2016 after almost 19 years of dating, Menounos made an appointment with her mother’s doctor, renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Keith L. Black, and they scheduled surgery for June 8—her 39th birthday. “He said, ‘I’m 98 percent sure it’s benign but we won’t know until we get in there,'” she says. 
 
 For much more from Menounos, pick up the new issue of PEOPLE and watch her emotional interview in PEOPLE Cover Story: Maria Menounos on the People/Entertainment Weekly Network (PEN). Go to People.com/PEN or download the PEN app on your favorite mobile or connected TV device. 
 
 During the complex surgery, which lasted about seven hours, Dr. Black was able to remove 99.9 percent of the tumor, which was benign. “He said there’s a six to seven percent chance that we’ll see it come back,” she says. “But I’ll take those odds any day.” 
 
 Brian Bowen Smith 
 
 Now back at home after a six-day hospital stay, Menounos is healing and spending time with her mother, Litsa, whose latest MRI shows that her cancer is stable. “I don’t have my balance fully yet but as long as I’m holding on to Keven, I’m sturdy and fine,” Menounos says. “My face is still numb. This is something that takes at least a month of healing, but I’m getting stronger and stronger every day and I’ll be back to normal very soon.” 
 
 Menounos, who has worked for E!, Extra and Access Hollywood, appeared on Dancing with the Stars and wrestled for the WWE, sees the experience as a “blessing” that brought her family closer and led her to re-evaluate her life. “We’re caretakers as women and we put ourselves last,” she says. “I tell people all the time if your car is making a weird noise, you take it to the mechanic. How come when our body is making weird noises, we ignore it? I’m so lucky that I went to the doctor and raised the alarm.”
– E! News anchor Maria Menounos is stepping away from her job at the network as she takes time to undergo treatment for a recently discovered brain tumor, Variety reports. Menounos, who had been with E! News since 2014, tells People she started feeling lightheaded, experiencing headaches, and slurring her speech in February, and an MRI soon after revealed she had a meningioma tumor the size of a golf ball—all while she was tending to her mother, who's fighting her own battle against stage 4 brain cancer. "I didn't cry. I actually laughed," Menounos says, calling it "surreal" and "crazy" that she had fallen ill at the same time as her mom, with a similar condition. Menounos had a seven-hour surgery in early June to get rid of 99.9% of the tumor, which turned out to be benign. Her doctor says there's a "6 to 7% chance that we'll see it come back," she says, adding, "I'll take those odds any day." Although she says her face is still "numb" (the tumor had been pressing against her facial nerves), Menounos is recovering with the help of her fiance, Keven Undergaro, whom she's been with for two decades. And her mother, Litsa, is now stable in her own illness. Menounos pleads with other women "caretakers" to look after themselves, noting she's glad she acknowledged her symptoms. "We put ourselves last," she says. "If your car is making a weird noise, you take it to the mechanic. How come when our body is making weird noises, we ignore it?" (A dad in Wales says Facebook helped him discover his brain tumor.)