Today show anchor Sheinelle Jones revealed her son has been forced to keep off the soccer pitch due to a painful injury.
The 47-year-old co-host recently returned to the NBC show after her husband, Uche Ojeh, tragically passed away in May from a severe form of brain cancer. She mentioned that one of her sons is experiencing the discomfort of growing pains.
While she didn’t specify, Sheinelle shares son Kayin, 16, and twins Uche Jr. and Clara, 13, with her late husband.
During Monday’s episode of the 3rd Hour of Today, she talked with her colleagues, Craig Melvin and Dylan Dreyer, saying, ‘I was all over the place this weekend.
‘My son had a soccer game an hour and a half outside of the city and he’s injured.
He is experiencing what we refer to as growth pains or growing pains. Specifically, it’s occurring under his knees, which is actually quite common in growing boys.’
Despite his injury, Sheinelle added that she encouraged her son to be a good team player and to support the game from the side line.
‘I talked to him about being a good sport, so we still drove an hour and a half to be on the bench,’ she continued.
‘That was tough, ’cause I was sitting on the bench.’
Sheinelle Jones opened up about her son’s painful injury during Monday’s Today show
The host shares three children – son Kayin, 16, and twins Uche Jr. and Clara, 13 – with her late husband Uche Ojeh
Sheinelle returned to the Today show earlier this month after an extended hiatus due to her late husband’s illness.
In her first interview, she described the past few months as a ‘beautiful nightmare’ and said that she was heartbroken by her loss.
‘My heart is shattered,’ she said. ‘My heart is shattered in a million pieces.
‘The life I’ve known since I was 19 has changed forever. I always wanted children, and now I have three of my own. They’ve lost their father, and I’m their mother. It’s incredibly hard.’
‘So how am I doing? You know, it’s day-to-day. I’m proud of myself for, you know, how I’ve coped so far.
‘I’m proud of my kids for how we’ve been able to try to pull through. But it’s… it’s horrible. It’s just horrible. But I’m here.’
Ojeh was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a rapidly progressing cancer that originates in the brain or spinal cord, according to the Mayo Clinic.
There is no cure for the cancer, although it can be managed with treatments like radiation and chemotherapy.
The mom-of-three drove one of her son’s to his soccer match so he could support from the sidelines
Sheinelle’s husband Ojeh died in May following a battle with an aggressive form of brain cancer
Sheinelle and her late husband got married in 2007.
They were college sweethearts, as they met when they were both studying at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, in the late 1990s.
‘We would have been married 18 years this month,’ she said. ‘And it just felt like we always kind of had it.’
With tears in her eyes, she went on to say, ‘When he was nearing the end, I would admit, “This is terrible. It’s frightening. Yet, if I were to live this life again, I wouldn’t change a thing.”‘
