'Real Housewives Of Orange County' Vicki Gunvalson and Boyfriend Brooks Ayers Open Up About His Stage-3 Cancer, Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma

It has been a rough fall season for Real Housewives of Orange County veteran Vicki Gunvalson. The reality-TV star has been dealing with boyfriend Brooks Ayers's shocking Stage-3 cancer diagnosis. The star and her boyfriend speak with Us Weekly reporter Brody Brown about the scary health finding.

"There's no other choice, we're going to kick it," Vicki revealed

as and Brooks — who's now living with her in her Coto de Caza, California, house — told the reporter. "I just knew that something wasn't right, he hadn't been really looking good. I had come home from a business trip and he said, 'My cancer is back, I have Stage 3' and we were standing outside, it was 9:30 at night and I just burst into tears."

Brooks has non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and Vicki revealed that she didn't know a lot about the cancer.

"All I know is that coming back for the third time, it's not going away," she said.

A photo posted by Vicki Gunvalson (@vickigunvalson) on Nov 11, 2014 at 3:58pm PDT

As Mstars News reported earlier in October, Brooks was first diagnosed with Stage-3 cancer a year ago in fall 2013, an "aggressive and fast-moving cancer."

According to the National Cancer Institute, non-Hodgkin lymphoma is any of a large number of cancer of lymphocytes (white blood cells) It can occur with symptoms such as larger-than-normal lymph nodes accompanied by weight loss and fever. Prognosis and treatment depend on the stage and type of disease of the cancer.

This October, Brooks went through his chemo and treatment plan, which ultimately lead to Vicki moving him into her home: "I didn't want him to be recovering by himself and not have anybody there."

"Either it can tear you apart as a couple or it can bring you together," Brooks said. "And with us, without a doubt it has brought us together."

Many of Vicki's costars on RHOOC have reached out to Vicki and Brooks, including Shannon Beador, Heather and Terry Dubrow and Lizzie Rovske. The one housewife and former best friend of Vicki, Tamra Barney, has, sadly, not reached out.

"Never heard from Tamra," she said. "Interesting. You know what, you really find out who your true friends are when things like this happen."