Al Roker's Wife Deborah Roberts Says He's 'Moving a Little Slowly' After Knee Surgery
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Deborah Roberts shared an update on her husband of 27 years in an Instagram Live on Sunday following his knee surgery on May 9
Al Roker is still on the road to recovery from his knee surgery.
The Today weatherman's wife Deborah Roberts, 62, gave an update on the 68-year-old's health on Instagram Sunday and told her followers that Roker is "doing pretty well but moving a little slowly."
Speaking in an Instagram Live, Roberts, who is ABC News' senior national affairs correspondent, thanked fans for their good wishes and shared that Roker is eager to get back to work following his May 9 surgery.
"Thank you all so much for being so concerned about him and so interested in his well-being," she said. "As many of you know he had a knee re-replacement, so a knee that had been replaced many many years ago had problems and had to be re-replaced."
"It makes it slowgoing, it makes it a little tougher," she added. "It was a harder surgery, so it's a little bit harder to snap back from but he's doing pretty well, moving a little slowly."
Roberts then revealed that her husband of 27 years was sitting on the other side of her as she was talking to the camera, but "not interested in getting involved today."
"He wants to just say thank you to everybody who has asked about him," she continued. "Thank you all so much, you have all been so kind and so generous and just so caring and compassionate about my family over these last several months as we've gone through a few things."
The journalist also commented on Roker's return to the NBC show, adding, "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. So on Al's behalf and our family's behalf thank you so much and I'm sure he'll be popping up soon."
Roberts then called out her husband for not resting enough. "Some of you may have seen him cooking," she said. "I did not like that he's been trying to do that because he needed to give himself some time and some rest and elevate his leg and ice it and all of that, so he's doing all that."
"He's trying to obey the doctor's orders so that he can get back to work and to play as soon as possible, so just wanted to give you a little update on him."
Related:Al Roker's Wife Deborah Recalls 'Exhausting, Frightening' Time As Caregiver During His Health Crisis
On May 15, Roker made a virtual appearance on Today as he called in to catch up with his costars Savannah Guthrie, Hoda Kotb, Craig Melvin and Dylan Dreyer.
Asked how his recovery was going, Roker told his friends and colleagues that his knee was still feeling "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."
As for a return to Today, Roker said he still has some work to do, including "three days a week of physical rehab that'll go on for a few months."
"I still don't know, I'm hoping, maybe sometime in the next two weeks to be back," Roker said. "We'll just play it by ear every day. And that's the thing. And yes, I know I'm not going to use back before I have to."
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Roker's first knee replacement surgery was in April 2022. The second, which he underwent earlier this month, had to be delayed when Roker was hospitalized due to blood clots in his leg and lungs.
The weatherman was out of work for two months following the health scare, before returning to Today in early January. "Look, I had two complicating things," Roker said at the time. "I had blood clots, which they think came up after I had COVID in September. And then I had this internal bleeding going on, I lost half my blood. They were trying to figure out where it was."
Roker was being treated at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. Through surgery, his medical team discovered he had two bleeding ulcers. 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."
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