Tarek El Moussa's Bladder Nearly Explodes Due To Surgery Complications

HGTV star Tarek El Moussa is opening up, telling fans how complications from surgery nearly caused his bladder to "explode."

In his new book, 'Flip Your Life: How to Find Opportunity in Distress — in Real Estate, Business and Life', the 42-year-old is letting down his walls and bringing fans into his life, including how he faced some serious medical scares.

In 2013, the co-host of HGTV’s ‘Flip or Flop’ was diagnosed with both thyroid and testicular cancer, which caused him to go through several surgeries and radioactive iodine therapy.

The medical issues continued from there, as less than nine months after finishing his cancer treatment, the HGTV star suffered from a pinch in his sciatic nerve after slipping several discs in his lower back.

To ease the pain, El Moussa took "eight to ten" painkillers a day, which included the popular drug Vicodin. Due to the number of drugs he was putting into his system, he ultimately decided that back surgery was his best route to recovery.

But, just when he thought things couldn't get worse... they do.

“The catheter they had inserted at the hospital caused my urethra to close up. It should have been checked before I was sent home, but it wasn’t. My urethra had swollen shut,” he said in his new book. He ended up leaning "against the wall in agony," further explaining that he couldn't go to the bathroom "no matter what [he] did, [he] couldn’t get relief."

"By 6:30 in the morning, I hadn’t slept all night, and I was screaming. It was obvious that my bladder was about to explode, which was something I hadn’t considered during the night,” he continued to write in his book. “Realizing I could actually die, I grabbed my phone and called 911.”

El Moussa arrived at the hospital, which is when doctors discovered a complete blockage due to the amount of swelling in his urethra.

The HGTV star previously opened up about his health scares in a social media post, sharing, "The last 3 years were the hardest of my life, I look back and still wonder how I survived... I never quit, although, I wanted to thousands of times all day every day. This is from hurting my back after battling 2 cancers."

El. Moussa shared a photo where he looked "like a skeleton", showing fans and followers "how absolutely sick [he] was."

He went on to say, "This took a major toll on my physical and mental health. I know many of my fans have had similar struggles and can relate."

El Moussa then had some words of encouragement for anyone else going through a tough time in their life, sharing, "remember... keep your head up and don't quit! There is light at the end of the tunnel, stay strong!"

' Flip Your Life: How to Find Opportunity in Distress — in Real Estate, Business and Life' is out now.