Heavy A Hallmark Channel alum has been hospitalized
Weeks after undergoing hip replacement surgery, former morning TV host and Hallmark Channel alum Kathie Lee Gifford, 70, was hospitalized after falling and fracturing her pelvis in two places, People reported on July 30, 2024.
Telling the magazine the injury has been “unbelievably painful,” Gifford said, “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 Blames Herself for Pelvic Injury
GettyKathie Lee Gifford attends the “Unsung Hero” Nashville World Premiere in Nashville on April 15, 2024.
Gifford, who has lived in Nashville since leaving “The Today Show” in 2019, told People that her pelvic injury “is my own fault” after pushing herself too hard as she recovered from hip replacement surgery earlier in the summer.
That included moving “300 books by myself” during book signings for her latest publication, “Herod and Mary: The True Story of the Tyrant King and the Mother of the Risen Savior, she told People. Noting that overdoing it “weakened my body,” Gifford said that the injury happened when she tripped while answering the door when a friend came over.
“It didn’t take much, because I was weak in that spot,” Gifford told People. “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.”
Though People published a photo of Gifford in the hospital taken by her son, Cody, she had not alluded to her hospitalization on social media at the time of publication.
On July 30, the same day news broke of her hospitalization, Gifford posted a photo of herself at home but did not say when it was taken. In the caption, she pointed out that she was wearing a denim jacket from actress Jennie Garth’s new QVC line.
Many fans left get well wishes on Gifford’s post, including one who wrote, “So sorry to hear about your fall. Hope you are feeling better and not in a lot of pain! Praying for complete healing. Maybe God is telling you to slow down girl😍”
Gifford told People that the new injury has been a “humbling experience,” adding that she’s done lots of physical therapy during her full week in the hospital.
“You think you know your body and the next thing you know, your body changes when you get older,” Gifford told the outlet. “And as much as I don’t wanna think about it, I am.”
Kathie Lee Gifford Said Surgery Recovery Was ‘One of the Most Painful Situations of My Entire Life’
Even before her hospitalization, Gifford, who co-starred in Hallmark’s “A Godwink Christmas” movies, per IMDb, previously opened up about doing too much, too soon after her hip surgery.
During a mid-July appearance on “The Today Show”, where she spent 11 years co-hosting the fourth hour with Hoda Kotb, Gifford revealed that it took a while to discover why she’d been “in such agonizing pain,” thinking at first it was her spine.
“I had serious surgery almost a month ago,” she told Kotb, adding that after the operation, her doctor “came in to tell me it went beautifully and then said, ‘Kathie, how have you been existing all this time?’ He said, ‘It’s one of the worst hips I’ve ever seen.'”
Gifford admitted to People on July 16 that she had already pushed herself too hard during her recovery, though.
She explained, “I was off my walker in two days. I was off all my medications in three days, and then I did too much. I just did too much because that’s who I am.”
She continued, “I walked, I climbed, I walked, and my doctor said, ‘Kathie, no. You have got to realize that this is serious.”
All that extra activity only brought new pain, Gifford told People, admitting that recovery had been “one of the most painful situations of my entire life.”
At the time, Gifford told People, “I have learned from this that you only can only do so much. You’re just human.”