Natalie’s Surgery Became a Big Problem for Mike on ’90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After?’

Natalie Mordovtseva’s operation on 90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After? Season 6 became a big bone of contention between her and her American husband, Mike Youngquist… but what surgery did Natalie get anyway?

Mike explained the operation in the TLC show’s July 11 episode, saying that his Ukrainian bride had “polyps in her nose” and that surgery was the only way to fix the situation.

But Natalie seemed deadset on going under the knife without Mike’s support. For starters, she scheduled the surgery without consulting him, as viewers found in a previous clip.

“I have known that Natalie has had some breathing issues, and we have talked about surgery as an option, but I had no clue that she already scheduled the operation,” Mike said in a confessional. “It just really frustrates me that she didn’t have the decency to talk to me about it. … I just kind of call it being selfish.”

As Johns Hopkins Medicine explains, nasal polyps are noncancerous growths — often teardrop-shaped — that form in groups in the nose and sinuses.

Symptoms of nasal polyps include difficulty breathing through one’s nose, a diminished sense of smell, a diminished sense of taste, post-nasal drip, runny nose, headaches, coughing, snoring, itching around the eyes, sinus pressure, facial pain, and upper teeth pain.

Johns Hopkins notes that researchers are still investigating the cause of nasal polyps, but so far, their research suggests that people with an abnormal immune response and different chemical markers in their mucus membrane are the ones who are affected.

For some people, oral or nasal corticosteroids can help shrink the nasal polyps, the medical center says. But if those steroids don’t do the trick, then surgeons can perform endoscopic surgery to remove the polyps and help patients’ sinus and nasal fluids drain properly.

In the July 18 episode of HEA, Mike expresses his frustration that Natalie went to the hospital and got the surgery without him. “I took the time off, [and I] didn’t know what was going on with you, you know?” he told her. “You just kind of left me high and dry.”

But Natalie contended that she wanted to avoid another fight. “I thought when I go to surgery that we can put our recent issues behind [us], but it will not happen,” she said in a confessional. “I don’t understand how Michael doesn’t see that we fight all the time. … The night before [the] operation, it was one of several nights when we [fought] about [a] misunderstanding, so I just needed to be by myself, and I don’t think [there’s] anything wrong with that.”

Mike saw it differently, of course. “Natalie tends to have selfish ways, definitely,” he told viewers. “I understand she’s scared and everything, but it hit me kind of deep, you know? I’m trying to be worried for her and help her, and there was no reason for her not to come get me [so I could] wait in the waiting room for her, just like any other normal husband would do with their wife.”

90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After airs Sundays at 8 p.m. ET on TLC.