Melissa Gilbert is recovering from her fourth spinal surgery. The 56-year-old, best known as the star of "Little House on the Prairie," shared the news on Instagram.
"Surgery was wildly successful! Dr [Robert] Bray was able to remove all the old hardware, shave off bone spurs causing numbness in my right hand and, and, and, he was able to give me the artificial disc!!!" she captioned a photo of herself smiling in a hospital bed. "So now I focus on recovery and remaining Covid free."
Earlier this week Gilbert revealed on Instagram that she was scheduled to undergo the operation despite fears of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The actress had a neck fusion in 2001 and in 2010 had her back fused after breaking it. Gilbert then suffered head and neck injuries after a fall on "Dancing with the Stars" and in 2016 broke her back when the balcony of a house she was renting collapsed over her head, forcing her to withdraw from the congressional race for Michigan's 8th district.
Four years ago she underwent a third spinal surgery but the fusion had failed and the "hardware was boring a hole" in Gilbert's C7 vertebra. Bray decided surgery was necessary and that Gilbert would be a good candidate for an artificial disc instead of a fusion.
"The catch was that I had about six months. Double catch, hello COVID-19," she captioned a photo of the John F. Kennedy International Airport. "So I waited as long as possible. I’ve now reached the point where the pain is nearly constant and the fingers on my right hand are beginning to tingle."
Gilbert shared that she was taking every precaution to avoid contracting the coronavirus.
"My only job now is to stay free of this horrible virus so I can have my surgery."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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