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Al Roker Recovery Update: Al Roker Knee Replacement Surgery. Al Roker made a virtual appearance on the Today show Monday morning, to update viewers on the status of his recovery after undergoing knee surgery.
Al Roker Recovery Update: Al Roker Knee Replacement Surgery
On Today on Monday, Roker said, “I’m hoping, maybe sometime in the next two weeks, to be back.”
The veteran weatherman, who underwent surgery on May 9 and is now on a break from the NBC morning show, dropped in to catch up with Savannah Guthrie, Hoda Kotb, Craig Melvin, and Dylan Dreyer.
He made a joke, “I’m home from the hospital, it’s Monday.” Just another day, right?
When asked how his rehabilitation was progressing, Roker, 68, replied that his knee was still “stiff.”
“This one is a little more complicated because it’s what they call a revision; it was a replacement of a replacement, so they had to take stuff out, put stuff in, so it was a bit of a bear,” Roker said. “So we’ve just been kind of hanging out. Chilling out, not doing anything — which I know, a lot of people find hard to believe, but in fact, that is the case.”
He’s been able to catch up on his favorite TV shows, such as Mrs. Davis, The Madalorian, and Poker Face, thanks to the downtime, according to Roker. He added that he has been spending time with his family, which includes his wife Deborah Roberts, whose book about teachers has just debuted on the New York Times Best Sellers list, and son Nick, who recently returned from college.
I was being outrageously hopeful that, as is kind of our pattern, we would spend Mother’s Day at one of our [favorite restaurants], Daniel. However, that was not feasible, so we placed an order for some quiche and other items and simply enjoyed a beautiful supper in this backyard, according to Roker. Which was good because yesterday was a beautiful day.
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Roker underwent a second knee replacement procedure. The first took place in April 2022, and the second had to be postponed since Roker had to go to the hospital because of blood clots in his lung and leg.
After the health scare, he missed two months of work before rejoining Today in early January. Roker then stated, “Look, I had two complicating situations. They believe that my COVID treatment in September is what caused my blood clots. I soon began to have internal bleeding, losing half of my blood. They were looking for it and trying to locate it.
At the New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, Roker was receiving treatment. His medical team detected two bleeding ulcers after surgery.
Doctors resectioned his colon, took out his gallbladder, and operated on his duodenum, part of the small intestine.
“I went into for one operation, I got four free,” joked Roker. “So I got that going for me.”