is in high spirits after recently being hospitalized for a fractured pelvis.
“I’m doing well!” Gifford, 70, told Entertainment Tonight in an interview published on Wednesday, July 31. “I’m happy to be out of the hospital. As lovely as all those people are to me, they really took good care of me, but there’s no place like home.”
Now back at home, Gifford said she’s continuing to undergo daily physical therapy. “They gotta get you up and moving. You don’t want your bones to atrophy,” she shared. “It can be anywhere from three months to, you know, just a month to who knows? I just have to listen to them at this time.”
Gifford underwent hip replacement surgery earlier this month, telling People on July 16 that her recovery has been “one of the most painful situations of my entire life.”
“I walked, I climbed, I walked, and my doctor said, ‘Kathie, no. You have got to realize that this is serious.’ And I was off my walker in two days,” she said. “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.”
Choosing to do things at her own pace, Gifford revealed to People on Wednesday that she “moved 300 books by myself” at a Nashville book signing for her new novel. One day later, she tripped and fractured her pelvis.
“It didn’t take much, because I was weak in that spot,” the former Today host explained. “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.”
The incident is one Gifford described as “humbling,” noting that she chose to spend a week in the hospital because she didn’t “trust myself.” She told the outlet: “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.”
Gifford went on to joke that “it’s summer for everybody but me. But it’s OK.” She did note that some of her upcoming plans include going to her “little farm one of these days and stick[ing] my feet in the salt pool.”
She continued: “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.’”
Gifford is best known for her memorable TV career, having hosted popular shows such as Live! With Regis and Kathie Lee and Today With Kathie Lee & Hoda.
Outside of the entertainment world, Gifford has released several autobiographical and children’s books over the years. Her latest novel, Herod and Mary: The True Story of the Tyrant King and the Mother of the Risen Savior, hit shelves on July 16.
