After his knee surgery on May 9, Deborah Roberts provided an update on her husband of 27 years during an Instagram Live.
Al Roker is still making progress after having knee surgery.
Deborah Roberts, 62, the wife of the Today weatherman, informed her fans on Instagram on Sunday that Al Roker, 68, is “doing pretty well but moving a little slowly.”
Roker is excited to return to work after having surgery on May 9 according to Roberts, senior national affairs correspondent for ABC News, who also thanks followers for their well wishes.
She thanked everyone for showing such concern for him and a sincere desire to ensure his well-being. “As many of you are aware, he had his knee replaced; consequently, a knee that had been replaced many, many years earlier needed to be replaced again.”
“It makes it slowgoing; it makes it a little tougher,” she continued. “He’s doing quite well, moving a little slowly, but it’s a little difficult to recover from the harder surgery.”
As she continued speaking to the camera, Roberts said that her husband of 27 years was seated across from her but was “not interested in getting involved today.”
“He just wants to thank everyone who has inquired about him,” she said. “Thank you all so much; you have all been so kind and generous and just generally caring and compassionate about my family over these last several months as we’ve gone through a few things.”
The journalist said, “Al is chomping at the bit to try to get back to work, but the doctor just wants him to take it slowly so that he can continue to heal well. ” in response to Roker’s return to the NBC program. “So, thank you so much on behalf of Al and our family. I know he’ll show up soon.”
Then Roberts chastised her husband for not getting enough sleep. She said, “Some of you might have seen him cooking.”
“He needed to give himself some time, some rest, elevate his leg, ice it, and other things, so he’s doing all of that, which is why I didn’t like that he’s been trying to do that.”
“I just wanted to give you a brief update on him because he’s working hard to follow the doctor’s instructions so that he can resume working as soon as possible.”
Roker called into Today’s Studio on May 15 to check in with his co-stars Savannah Guthrie, Hoda Kotb, Craig Melvin, and Dylan Dreyer.
When asked about his rehabilitation, Roker informed his friends and coworkers 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, they had to put stuff in, so it was a bit of a bear,” Roker added. “We’ve essentially been hanging out. Many people find it difficult to understand that people can just relax and do nothing, yet it’s true.”
Roker stated that he still has work to do before returning to Today, including “three days a week of physical rehab that’ll go on for a few months.”
Roker remarked, “I still don’t know, but I’m hoping to be back sometime in the next two weeks. We’ll simply wing it every day. That’s the issue, though. And yeah, I am aware that I won’t use it again before I have to.”
April 2022 saw the first knee replacement operation for Roker.
After the health scare, the weatherman missed two months of work before joining Today in early January. Roker remarked at the time, “Look, I had two complicating things. 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. His colon was resected, his gallbladder was removed, and surgery was performed on his duodenum, which is a piece of the small intestine.
Roker said in jest, “I went in for one operation, I got four.”
