Kathie Lee Gifford Learning to ‘Slow Down’ After Painful Recovery From Surgery

Kathie Lee Gifford attends a panel titled “From Book to Screen” during the 2016 Greenwich International Film Festival in Greenwich, Conn., on June 12, 2016. (Noam Galai/Getty Images for GIFF)

Kathie Lee Gifford is on the road to recovery after undergoing hip replacement surgery that changed the trajectory of her life.

In a recent interview with People magazine, the 70-year-old said she had high hopes for an “easy” surgery but admits recuperation has been “one of the most painful situations of my entire life.”

Ms. Gifford said she’s had a hard time adjusting to a slower paced lifestyle, after practically “jumping off that gurney” following the surgery. That’s when she quickly came to the realization that taking it slow was the only way she'd properly heal.

“I walked, I climbed, I walked, and my doctor said, ‘Kathie, no. You have got to realize that this is serious,’” she said. “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.”

The former “Today” show co-host was living with chronic pain, leaving doctors questioning where it was stemming from and initially looking for problems in her spine. Ultimately, they opted for a total hip replacement surgery.

“They finally found out what it was, and by that time, I‘d been in such agonizing pain. My doctor finished the surgery, came in to tell me it went beautifully, and then he said, ’Kathie, how have you been existing all this time? [You had] some of the worst hips I’ve ever seen.'”

Years of Physical Activity Blamed

Doctors told Ms. Gifford her incredibly active lifestyle was to blame as her “hips [were] down to the nubs.”

“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,” she recalled her doctor saying.

Despite the intense wake-up call, Ms. Gifford threw herself right back into work as she prepared for the release of her new historical nonfiction book, “Herod and Mary: The True Story of the Tyrant King and the Mother of the Risen Savior,” which delves into the story of Herod the Great and Mary, the mother of Jesus.

“I started carrying books around and signing and getting ready, and my grandchildren came to visit,” Ms. Gifford said.

She assumed that because she had been so active in the past, recovery would come easily, but she said she learned that taking care of yourself is just as much physical as it is mental.

Ms. Gifford became a household name early in her career as a correspondent for ABC’s “Good Morning America” in the 1980s.

In 1985, she joined Regis Philbin to host “The Morning Show” on a local New York City station before the show launched nationally three years later as “Live! With Regis and Kathie Lee.”

Despite the challenges she recently faced, Ms. Gifford said she has zero regrets about how she’s lived her life, even though her doctors said her constant activity caused her hip problems.

“[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.”