Famed TV host Kathie Lee Gifford revealed she was recently hospitalized after she fractured her pelvis amid hip replacement recovery.
While speaking to PEOPLE, Gifford shared that she suffered a fractured pelvis in two places. She was hospitalized for more than a week to receive physical therapy for the injury.
Kathie Lee Gifford stated that the day before her fall she moved “300 books” by herself during a booking signing in Nashville. “I weakened my body,” she stated. “It’s my own fault.”
When one of her friends came to pick her up the next day, Gifford said she was hurrying out the door when she “just tripped.”
“It didn’t take much, because I was weak in that spot,” Kathie Lee Gifford shared. “And the next thing you know, I am back in the hospital with a fractured pelvis, the front and the back. That’s more painful than anything I went through with the hip. The pelvis is unbelievably painful. But anyway, here I am.”
Gifford described the experience as being “humbling” and she chose to stay in the hospital for a full week. “I don’t trust myself,” she admitted. “You think you know your body and the next thing you know, your body changes when you get older. And as much as I don’t wanna think about it, I am.”
Kathie Lee Gifford further pointed out, “It’s summer for everybody but me. But it’s OK. I’m going to get out to my little farm one of these days and stick my feet in my salt pool. The Lord is telling me it’s time to slow down. I’ve been running my whole life. The Lord is telling me, ‘You’ve planted a gazillion roses. Try smelling them.'”
Kathie Lee Gifford Recently Spoke About Hip Replacement Surgery
During an early July interview with PEOPLE, Kathie Lee Gifford spoke about how she had a recent hip replacement surgery. She admitted the recovery was “one of the most painful situations” of her life.
“It’s been really hard,” she explained. The former Today co-host recalled what her surgery told her. “You climbed mountains, you made movies, you got on stages. You never took off your high heels, and you kept going and that’s why you’re going through what you’re going through.”
Although she has had some challenges during the recovery, Kathie Lee Gifford said she doesn’t regret living life to the fullest. “[I ask myself] would I change that? No, I was doing what God put me on this earth to do. Every year of it, I was doing what He called me to do.”