Yolanda Hadid was originally told her Lyme disease was chronic fatigue syndrome.
Yolanda Hadid
The 53-year-old television personality has revealed that although she now knows she suffers from the tick-transmitted disease - which her daughter Bella, 20, and son Anwar, 18, both suffer from - she was originally told by doctors that her lethargic nature was down to the less serious chronic fatigue syndrome, in which sufferers experience extreme tiredness.
She said: "In the beginning stages you just go 'Okay', you're taught to believe the doctors are always right. So whatever the doctors said [I just went] 'Oh, I'm fine!'
"So you keep pushing, pushing, pushing. And then days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months, and months turned into years."
The 'Real Housewives of Beverly Hills' star - who is also mother to model Gigi Hadid, 22 - was finally admitted to hospital in Belgium after suffering severe migraines and dark circles around her eyes, where doctors gave her the news that she was carrying Lyme disease.
She told People magazine: "I remember going to the airport to Belgium ... I mean they had to push me in a wheelchair that's how debilitated I was. So it was a long six weeks of waiting, and once you get an answer it's like the light went on. And you go 'See!' I told everybody I had an infection in my brain, and they were looking at my like I'm crazy. But I knew it was something in my brain because of the circles under my eyes."
Meanwhile, Yolanda recently revealed she "wanted to die" after her diagnoses, but clung on to life for the sake of her brood.
She said: "I just was hopeless and didn't see how I was going to get out of the dark hole. I wanted to die, but the next second, I looked at a picture of my sweet kids. They are my reason for fighting."