Baywatch Alum Nicole Eggert Shares Breast Cancer Diagnosis

In an interview with PEOPLE, the 51-year-old actress shared that she was diagnosed with stage 2 cribriform carcinoma breast cancer last month.

Eggbert said she gained 25 pounds in three months and began experiencing "terrible pain" in her left breast in October. After feeling a lump in her breast during a self-exam, she called her doctor.

"It really was throbbing and hurting. I immediately went to my general practitioner and she told me I had to immediately go get it looked at," she recalled. "But the problem was I just couldn't get an appointment. Everything was booked. So I had to wait until the end of November to get it done."

After she underwent several tests, she was told she had cancer.

"This journey's been rough for me. This hasn't been a breezy sail through life," Eggert told PEOPLE. "I always read inspirational quotes and corny stuff, but it gets me through."

The Charles in Charge actress revealed she'll need surgery to remove the cancer, and her treatment will require chemotherapy and radiation.

"I can definitely feel it," she said of the lump. "It's there. It needs to be taken out. So it's just a matter of do I have to do treatment before the surgery or can they perform the surgery and then I do the treatment after."

"I have panics where I'm like, just get this out of me," continued Eggert, whose mother battled colon cancer and father had skin cancer. "You sit there and it's in you and you're like, every second that passes and it's inside of me. It's growing, and you're just like, you just want it out."

The Boy Meets World alum added that her "biggest fear" is not being able to be there for her kids: daughters Keegan, 12, and Dilyn, 25.

"[Dilyn's] an adult, but I have a 12-year-old at home where I'm the only caregiver. I have no family. I have nothing," she told PEOPLE. "It immediately made me realize, there's just no succumbing to this. This is something I have to get through. This is something that I have to beat. She needs me more than anything and anybody."

Eggert admitted that being a single mother has "not been an easy road" financially, sharing that she's "really appreciative" of her friend Mindy Molinary, who launched a GoFundMe to assist Eggert with her cancer battle.

"My fear is that my everyday hustle, everything that I do to keep everything going is going to come to a screeching halt when I'm not feeling well or I'm sick or I'm in the hospital or whatever is going on," she said. "It's just so overwhelming, and I'm just doing everything I can not to spiral. At night when I lay down, I panic because I'm like, well, who's going to cover all the bills? Who's going to do all of this?"

Eggert also shared that she plans on starting a non-profit organization after she recovers to help other single parents dealing with similar issues.

According to BreastCancer.org, 1 in 8 women in the U.S. will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime, with the disease being the most common cancer among women in the country.