Maria Menounos opens up about brain tumor battle

LOS ANGELES, Calif. (KABC) -- Maria Menounos opened up about her road to recovery one month after surgery to remove a brain tumor.

Her first stop on the road to recovery? The mall.

"The doctor has us on walking therapy," said her fiancé Keven Undergaro. "The valley is too hot so we've become mall walkers."

The TV host is up and about in her latest Instagram posts, first walking with Undergaro then playfully taking a break in a department store bed.

It's a welcome sight just one month after her seven-and-a-half hour surgery to remove a benign golf ball-sized brain tumor. But even right after surgery, the 39-year-old made clear she's a fighter and apparently a Rocky fan.

"It ain't how hard you hit," she said. "It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take."

"She says that she actually had at one point wished that she herself would get sick rather than her mother," said J.D. Heyman of People Magazine. "Obviously it's a bizarre and strange coincidence that she indeed developed a brain tumor."

In an interview, Menounos talked about visiting her doctor in February and revealing something was wrong.

"I'm getting dizzy on set. I said, 'Every time I get off the couch I get light headed and dizzy.'" she revealed to the magazine. "I said, 'I know you're going to think I'm crazy, but I feel like I have a brain tumor like my mom.'"

It turned out she was right, but she took the news in stride.

"It brought our whole family together and there have been a lot of beautiful things that have come from this illness," she said. "For me, I saw it as a huge blessing and a huge gift because, I needed to change my life."

Menounos left her job as an entertainment reporter and wants to help other families that are also going through a similar health crisis.

"There is a 6 to 7 percent chance that we'll see it come back so I'll take those odds any day," she said.