Savannah Guthrie Announces Plans to Return to 'Today' in the New Year
Savannah Guthrie has been on medical leave from the 'Today Show' after suffering from a serious eye injury. While she appeared valiantly to host the annual 'Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade,' she has spent the rest of the past month resting and recovering from surgery. Fortunately, [PopCulture] (https://popculture.com/tv-shows/2019/12/18/today-anchor-savannah-guthrie-reveals-when-return-morning-show/) reported that she announced that she plans to return in the new year.
[Guthrie's injury] (https://youtu.be/ATGCFYmJJNw) occurred when she was playing with her son Charley. The two-year-old was sitting in her lap when he accidentally hit her eye with his toy train.
While Guthrie is healing well, she called into the NBC show this morning to inform fans that she still has plenty of healing to do.
"I was kind of wishing I could come in at the end of this week, but the truth is I still can't see out of that right eye and also it looks a little weird," she said. "When the surgery was first done I looked like I got punched in the face ... it was very swollen."
"Now it looks pretty normal, but I can't see," she added. "The short answer is I think I'm gonna come (back) after the holidays."
Guthrie initially attempted laser treatments to try to fix the injury. Unfortunately, those were unsuccessful and she had to undergo emergency retinal detachment surgery. The surgery was successful but required plenty of recovery time.
In the same episode, her surgeon Dr. Donald D'Amico of Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City described the procedure to viewers in detail.
"You think of how you would put a poster on the wall,'" D'Amico said. "We've all put a poster on the wall with glue. You have to hold it for a few minutes or seconds in order to get it to stick. The bubble (from the procedure) holds the retina reattached in the eye, and as the bubble goes away by the body absorbing it, the laser treatment and the freezing treatment provide the permanent scar that keeps it stable."
"Fortunately for Savannah, the tear was at the side of her retina and not the very center, so the prospect for her central vision to return is very good," D'Amico said.
Guthrie is still waiting for her vision to return, but due to D'Amico's predictions and the progress she's made thus far, she is hopeful that her vision will fully return. Her co-anchors including Hoda Kotb are eagerly awaiting her return. For now, she is sticking to her strict regimen of alternating lying down and sitting up every hour.
