Rosie O’Donnell Fiancee’s Rare Disease Pushes Back Couple’s Wedding

Rosie O’Donnell and fiancee Michelle Rounds have decided to put off their wedding after Rounds was diagnosed with a rare, cancer-like disease.

The couple had planned on marrying in December but decided to postpone it until next summer, Fox 12 Oregon reported. Rosie O’Donnell’s fiancee had surgery in June and has been recovering since then, the couple reported.

Rosie O’Donnell broke the news of her fiancee’s medical condition through her blog, where she wrote about it in the form of a poem.

She also gave a description of Desmoid tumors, which act like cancer though not technically the disease itself, writing:

desmoid tumors/odd and curious beasts/strong and sneaky/a non cancer that acts cancerous

only 900 cases a year in the US/an orphan disease – beyond rare/only 3 people per million get this/michelle is one of them

O’Donnell said Michelle–whom she affectionately calls “Mish”–woke up on Mother’s Day to “morning pain that won’t let up,” Us Weekly reported. Rosie wrote that as doctors struggled to diagnose the condition the couple grew more afraid, and “it seemed impossible no one knew what was wrong.”

The Desmoid Tumor Research Foundation notes that the extremely rare condition arises from connective tissue, with close to 900 new cases diagnosed in the United States each year. Although the desmoid tumors cannot metastasize in the same manner as more well-known cancers, they can destroy “adjacent normal tissues,” including bone, and even lead to death.

Before the diagnosis, Rounds had been seeing a fertility doctor and the couple had hoped to conceive a child.

Rosie O’Donnell and fiance Michelle Rounds had planned to be married in Long Island, where Rosie grew up.