Savannah Guthrie to undergo another eye surgery amid ongoing vision issues: 'I am very hopeful my sight will be restored'
Savannah Guthrie is undergoing cataract surgery, which she hopes is the final phase of restoring her vision after suffering a retina detachment last year.
The Today show co-anchor, 48, shared the medical update on Monday before signing off the morning show early to undergo the common procedure on her right eye. The surgery is necessary to correct a blurry spot that has lingered since she had retinal detachment surgery in December. The initial injury occurred a month prior when her 3-year-old son, Charley, accidentally hit her in the eye with a toy train.
Guthrie had put off the surgery due to the coronavirus pandemic, which saw her delivering the news from home at one point.
"It's been a long time,” she said of the wait to have the procedure, which is expected to take just 30 minutes. “I'm super excited. I feel like it's Christmas morning because if they remove this cataract I'll really be able to see, and I've had a hard time seeing."
We’re sending @savannahguthrie positive thoughts ahead of her follow-up eye surgery today ?? pic.twitter.com/IFvBN0Yrgc
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) July 20, 2020
Guthrie — who temporarily lost her vision after the accident — spoke of lingering vision problems she’s experienced. She said her vision has been “kind of distorted and then it's got a wavy thing, and now I have this cataract, which is a big blurry spot ... Once they remove that blur, I think it will be a lot better.”
She added, “Hopefully next time I see you I'll really see you!”
On social media, Guthrie called the surgery “an expected complication of the retina detachment.” That is something she spoke of on the Ellen DeGeneres Show earlier this year, saying, “The surgery worked. A lot of people get complications, and I did, too, so I have to have cataract surgery, but I can't have it until all this has passed.” She said she had been seeing “big, blurry spots.”
In Monday’s Instagram post — which included an image of Charley playing the game Operation — she said she was “very hopeful” her ”sight will be restored” to 100 percent.
Previously, she said that her vision will never be what it was. In April she told People magazine, when she said, “I don’t think my eye will ever be the way it once was, but I think it will be much improved.”
Guthrie will take a sick day on Tuesday but expects to be back to work later in the week, according to the show website.
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