Kathie Lee Gifford was hospitalised following a fall while recovering from recent hip replacement surgery, she tells PEOPLE exclusively.
The 70-year-old former Today co-host claims she shattered her pelvis in two places and spent almost a week in the hospital undergoing physical therapy.
Gifford claims she “moved 300 books by myself” at book signings in Nashville. “I weakened my body,” she admits. “It’s my own fault.”
The following day, one of Gifford’s pals arrived to pick her up. She raced to the door and “just tripped,” Gifford said.
“It didn’t take much, because I was weak in that spot,” Gifford tells People. “The next thing you know, I’m back in the hospital with a fractured pelvis, both front and back. That is more excruciating than anything I experienced with my hip. The pelvis is really uncomfortable. But regardless, I’m here.”
Gifford describes it as a “humbling experience” and chose to stay in the hospital for a week because “I don’t trust myself.”
“You think you know your body and the next thing you know, your body changes when you get older,” according to Gifford. “And as much as I don’t wanna think about it, I am.”
“It’s summer for everybody but me,” Gifford adds. “But it’s okay. I’m going to go out to my tiny farm one of these days and soak my feet in my salt pool. The Lord is telling me that it’s time to calm down. I’ve been jogging all my life. The Lord tells me, ‘You’ve sown a billion roses. “Try smelling them.”
Earlier this month, Gifford told PEOPLE that her hip replacement surgery and recuperation were “one of the most painful situations of my entire life.”
“It’s been really hard,” she said.
The TV star need surgery due to her active lifestyle. She recalls the physician telling her, “You climbed mountains, created movies, and appeared on stage. You never took off your high heels and kept going, which is why you’re going through this.”
Despite the difficult rehabilitation, Gifford does not regret enjoying life to its fullest.
“[I ask myself] Should I change that? No, I was carrying out God’s plan for my life. “Every year, I was doing what He called me to do,” she stated at the time.
Gifford’s hospitalisation has not prevented her from celebrating the publication of her new book, Herod and Mary: The True Story of the Tyrant King and the Mother of the Risen Saviour.
According to an official description, the historical nonfiction book provides “deep insight into how Herod rose to power, how corruption and an ancient evil threatened a nation’s stability, and how a teenage Mary was called to overcome these obstacles to bring the Saviour, Jesus, our living hope, into the world.”
Gifford said the idea for the book struck her while on a rabbinical trip in Israel a few years ago, and Cody, 34, “convinced” her that “these are stories that need to be told because people need hope.”
“I don’t know how much time the Lord has for me on this earth, but I pray that I can be useful…” “I would be kind, helpful, and loving to others,” she told PEOPLE. “I am a strong woman, but I’m a woman who for 60 years has been trying to do godly work, trying to do the right thing, trying to love people, [and] trying to represent the kingdom of God.”
