Bachelor Nation fans first met Cam Ayala on Season 15 of “The Bachelorette,” and he went on to appear on Season 6 of “Bachelor in Paradise.”

Since his time on the shows, Cam has been keeping fans updated with his life on social media, where he is extremely open about his journey with lymphedema, both as a patient and an advocate.

Earlier this week, Cam took to Instagram to share that his condition became so serious that one of his legs needed to be amputated.

He’s been sharing his journey as an amputee and the recovery process on social media, and he also just stopped by the “Click Bait with Bachelor Nation” podcast to discuss his healing.

During his conversation with Natasha Parker and Tia Booth, Cam got candid about wishing he wore his compression sleeve, which puts pressure on the limb and keeps lymph flowing through the lymphatic system.

Cam said, “The one big regret I did have from ‘Paradise’ and ‘Bachelorette’ was when we were filming and I was wearing shorts, which was 99% of the time in ‘Paradise,’ I was terrible about wearing my compression garment. It’s a compression daytime sleeve. I sacrificed my self-care and physical well-being for my self-consciousness of not wanting anyone to see an imperfection in me in wearing a leg garment.”

He went on, “It was such a missed opportunity because I feel like the tens of millions of Americans who have lymphedema could’ve seen representation, but I chose not to. Actually, I got a lot of DMs post-show when I started posting as a lymphedema advocate. People were questioning if I even had it because they would see the episode where I wasn’t wearing my garment and say it wasn’t that bad. That is some shame that I personally dealt with by not being a compliant patient on both of those appearances on TV.”

Now that it’s been a few years since his last TV appearance and he’s been through a lot, Natasha and Tia asked Cam what he’s learned from all of these experiences.

He said, “It’s taught me to give myself some grace. We’re in this society that almost demands perfection. When you’re scrolling on social media, you get snapshots of people portraying perfection. So when you don’t embrace your own insecurities or shortcomings, or in my case my stub now, I’m going to have to embrace this. There are going to be very vain and shallow people out there who are going to look at my amputated leg and see it as a burden to them versus a blessing.”

Cam said he has been learning to align himself with people who will lift him up rather than bring him down.

To hear more of Cam’s conversation on the “Click Bait with Bachelor Nation” podcast, check out this week’s full episode below.