'Top Chef' alum Fatima Ali shares photo, health update amid cancer battle: 'I'm getting sicker'

TOP CHEF -- Season:15 -- Pictured: Fatima Ali -- (Photo by: Tommy Garcia/Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) (Bravo)

After revealing her cancer had returned after undergoing surgery, former “Top Chef” contestant Fatima Ali shared the first photo of herself in weeks as well as a request for prayers from fans.

The 29-year-old chef revealed in a lengthy essay for Bon Appetit in October that her battle with Ewing’s sarcoma was not over despite a surgery meant to help her. In her latest photo, she has almost no hair, but is smiling in a hospital bed. In her caption, she asked fans for prayers to get her through the troubling decline her health is certain to take.

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“I’m sick and unfortunately I’m getting sicker. Right now all I need are prayers; prayers that are simple. I hope, because a wish is putting on too much responsibility on the other, that you will somehow find forgiveness in your big heart for whenever I must have hurt you,” she wrote. “I thank you a million times over for when you have given me joy. I’ll try to keep everyone updated the best that I possibly can.”

In 2017, the New York-based chef was diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, a rare form of cancer which grows in the bones or the soft tissue surrounding the bones, according to Mayo Clinic. She appeared on Season 15 of “Top Chef,” which prompted its host Padma Lakshmi, who was with her when she got her first surgery, to comment on the post.
“I’m coming Boo!” she wrote (via People). “Hold on tight.”

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Stars such as Richard Blais, Marcus Samuelsson, Sam Talbot and Questlove wished her well on social media as well. Overall, Ali seems sanguine about her situation.

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"An odd sense of relief has settled inside me, knowing that I can finally live for myself, even if it’s just for a few more precious months,” she previously wrote in Bon Appetit.