Health battles that nearly killed a lifestyle journalist and her husband have strengthened their marriage, she said this week.

Stefanie Michaels said: “He’s been really supportive and I’ve been really supportive.

“We’re best friends. You just learn through having this adversity what’s important.

“Being together and going through this, it brought us together. We just kind of say bring it on.”

Ms Michaels, who has more than a million Twitter followers, was speaking after she and husband, Phil Kantorovich, renewed their wedding vows in the cave at Grotto Bay Beach Resort & Spa on New Year’s Eve.

The couple married 20 years ago at a friend’s party in a ceremony that began on December 31, 1999, and ended in 2000.

She said: “We basically straddled the millennium.”

Ms Michaels, also known as Adventure Girl, who has more than 1.2 million followers on Twitter, said that some people had suggested the couple wait until their 25th anniversary to renew their vows.

But she said the pair had decided to do it on their platinum anniversary.

Ms Michaels explained: “We don’t know what will happen in the next five years. So why wait for anything?

“Twenty in 2020 — I mean it just works so perfect.”

Ms Michaels and Mr Kantorovich have battled serious health problems since their marriage.

Ms Michaels said that her husband had a brain tumour “about the size of an orange above his left ear” diagnosed about seven years ago.

She said that the tumour was non-cancerous, but that surgery to remove it had led to bleeding problems.

Ms Michaels added: “He was within about an hour or two of dying. They said the weight of the blood was pushing the brain off the brainstem. It was a really scary time.”

Ms Michaels had breast cancer diagnosed five years ago.

She said: “The tumour ended up being under the right breast near the rib. Had they not caught that, I would have been dead within a few months.”

Ms Michaels needed a second operation and that was followed with chemotherapy, and a later double mastectomy.

She cracked a breast implant inserted during reconstructive surgery in a car crash.

Ms Michaels developed an infection in her heart during surgery to fix the ruptured implant, which led to her being bedridden for nine weeks.

She added that two additional operations were needed, the most recent just last year.

Ms Michaels is known to millions of fans across the world as “Adventure Girl” and gives online advice on travel, entertainment and lifestyle.

She visited Bermuda about ten years ago and the island popped up as she searched for a suitable destination for the couple to renew their vows.

She said: “I wanted it to be somewhere really cool and unique, hence the cave.

“It’s just been a dream this whole time.”

Ms Michaels said that there was something special about Bermudians.

She explained: “I travel all over the world. I’m on the road typically about 180 days of the year.

“This really is a place that when you talk to people they come back over and over and over again.

“I think that is really a testament to the people of Bermuda.

“Hands down, this is one of my favourite places in the world. I’m really glad we got to do this here.”