Cory Wharton Says Maya’s Hospital Stay Reconnected Him With Taylor Selfridge

Out of nowhere came relief during Maya’s hospital stay, Cory Wharton said. A rough patch it had been, yet something good slipped through. Talking with E! News about teaming up with Quest Nutrition, he mentioned that silver lining without forcing hope into words.

Cory Wharton Faces a Terrifying Medical Crisis

Fire doesn’t faze Cory Wharton – neither does finishing last leg on a shredded knee. Yet nothing hits quite like seeing his three-year-old Maya stuck in a hospital bed again. MTV fame fades next to that.
One word comes to mind: chaos. That’s how a familiar face from The Challenge described it, talking only to E! News. Even though Maya has spent many stretches lying in hospitals – her unusual birth-related heart issue meant several chest-opening operations – Wharton said nobody expected this turn. Out of nowhere, everything shifted
In fact, while Taylor Selfridge, also mom to their 6-year-old daughter Mila, was with the girls, “I was actually filming a project out in Thailand,” Wharton shared. “And it took me 32 hours just to fly to see her. The first time seeing her in five weeks, she was on a ventilator. So it was just surreal.”
A month after their three-week stay in a Dallas hospital, “There’s still a lot of questions on why she formed plastic bronchitis,” noted Wharton, who shares Ryder, 9, with Teen Mom star Cheyenne Floyd, “and how these casts were growing in her lungs. And it’s scary because there’s not a definite answer right now.”

What they do know for sure, he said, is “we have all her numbers stable. She’s looking good. The pressures in her heart are great.”
When they look into how those lung blockages formed, cutting off her breath, Wharton mentioned quietly, everyone’s gaze lands on the child turning four before long
“It’s so scary because they’re like, ‘Well, is she turning purple? Is she about to pass out?'” he recounted of the advice they received from doctors.

“The minute we left the hospital, she instantly, like, started improving at a rapid rate,” Wharton recounted. Up until that point, she had barely said a word during the entire stay, he continued, “You’ve kind of been scaring us. But then the minute we leave, she’s being her goofy self and saying the words she normally would say.”
These days, they clearly take things step by step. Still, he said, “Right now she’s home, enjoying every moment.”

How the Trauma Reconnected Cory Wharton and Taylor Selfridge

She isn’t alone in this. Others share her path too. “Trauma bonding – it is a real thing,” Wharton, 35, acknowledged. Though he and Selfridge hadn’t been in the best place as a couple leading up to the hospital stay, he said that changed after “three weeks of being together, nonstop, going through that situation, just knowing that we both want what’s best for Maya and just dealing with that.”

With Maya on a ventilator for five days, “the whole time, you’re just kind of keeping her asleep, almost like a seduced coma,” he explained. “Me and Taylor, we got to have talks that we normally wouldn’t have.” We know what we want. We want this family to work. We want to be there for our girls.”
While it’d be hard to find the silver lining in every parent’s worst nightmare, noted Wharton, “If there was ever, like, a little diamond in the rough or blessing in disguise, it would be that, that me and Taylor did reconnect, and we did decide that, okay, we both have to put time into each other as well.”
True, that scary moment made one thing clear – life doesn’t last forever
“It changed my perspective on a lot of things,” Wharton acknowledged. “Those little things that you tend to stress about in life kind of went away. It was like, those things don’t matter in the grand scheme, right?”
Time spent here feels different. Happiness shows up in small moments. The air carries laughter. Colors seem brighter than elsewhere. People move with light steps. Smiles appear without reason. Moments stretch longer. Joy arrives quietly. This place holds a rhythm of its own
One thing is clear – scrapping Mila’s April birthday trip to Disneyland isn’t an option. After asking Maya’s doctor if she could handle the visit, Wharton said he responded without hesitation: “Get her to Disney, put her on the rides.” Staying cooped up forever? That wasn’t his advice

Cory Wharton Shakes Up His Fitness Routine with Olympic Rugby

Finding his own spark lately, Wharton agreed to a chance to train alongside both the U.S. men’s and women’s rugby squads
Invited by the team at Quest Nutrition to join the scrum in San Diego earlier this month, “I respect those athletes so much that it was an opportunity I just didn’t want to pass,” Wharton explained. And though he’s the type to go hard in training – “If I’m not the person that’s sweating the most in the gym, I feel like I’m failing” – learning how to kick a rugby ball was humbling, admitted the former college football player. “But it was a good time to get out there and run around and meet the Olympians.”
He also got to stock up on the brand’s new releases for his girls. In addition to their layered Stacks Bars, “They have this new protein shake that I’m definitely gonna try to mix that into a smoothie or something for them,” he detailed of their Salted Caramel Protein Shake.

Living for the Present: Cory Wharton Plans Future Family Adventures

Maybe he’ll slide some joy into their summer days too
In addition to an outing to Los Angeles’ Catalina Island and a return trip to Disneyland for Maya’s 4th birthday June 1, “I’m trying to book a summer trip for all my girls to go somewhere,” shared Wharton. “Taylor already told me we’re not going anywhere far. I was like, dang, I want to go somewhere far.”
On his maybe someday bucket list, “I want to go to Africa, do the safaris, and go to Egypt,” he shared. Enduring – and surviving – his worst case scenario, “kind of kickstarted me,” added Wharton of making all the plans. “Definitely just take it every day and not taking it for granted and just living our best life.”