70-Year-Old Kathie Lee Gifford Hospitalized After Fracturing Her Pelvis Following Hip Replacement Surgery

Kathie Lee Gifford was hospitalized after taking a nasty fall while recovering from her recent hip replacement surgery.

The former Today co-host, 70, fractured her pelvis in two places when she tripped and fell hurrying to meet a friend at her front door, RadarOnline.com can reveal.

She said: “It didn’t take much, because I was weak in that spot,” adding that she had “moved 300 books by myself” before the accident and “weakened my body ... it’s my own fault”.

“And the next thing you know, I am back in the hospital with a fractured pelvis, the front and the back. That’s more painful than anything I went through with the hip. The pelvis is unbelievably painful. But anyway, here I am.”

Gifford called the incident a “humbling experience” and revealed she chose to stay in the hospital for a full week to do physical therapy because “I don’t trust myself”.

She told PEOPLE: “You think you know your body and the next thing you know, your body changes when you get older. And as much as I don’t wanna think about it, I am.”

“It’s summer for everybody but me. But it’s OK. I'm going to get out to my little farm one of these days and stick my feet in my salt pool. The Lord is telling me it’s time to slow down. I’ve been running my whole life. The Lord is telling me, ‘You've planted a gazillion roses. Try smelling them.’”

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The TV star just had a “serious” and “total” hip replacement surgery a little over a month ago.

As she told Today: “They had been looking for the problem in my spine. They finally found out what it was, and by that time, I’d been in such agonizing pain.”

“My doctor finished the surgery, came in to tell me it went beautifully, and then he said, ‘Kathie, how have you been existing all this time? [You had] some of the worst hips I've ever seen ... It was terrible. You can’t fool your body, and it knows how old you are, and it knows where you’ve been.”

She added to PEOPLE that the recovery was “one of the most painful situations of my entire life” and has “been really hard”, saying: “I walked, I climbed, I walked, and my doctor said, ‘Kathie, no. You have got to realize that this is serious.’ And I was off my walker in two days. I was off all my medications in three days, and then I did too much. I just did too much because that's who I am.”

“I started carrying books around and signing and getting ready, and my grandchildren came to visit. And you can’t. I have learned from this that you only can only do so much. You're just human. You're just human. And I'm so grateful.”

Gifford blamed her active lifestyle for her health issues, recalling the surgeon telling her: “You climbed mountains, you made movies, you got on stages. You never took off your high heels, and you kept going and that's why you’re going through what you’re going through.”

She continued: “[I ask myself] would I change that? No, I was doing what God put me on this earth to do. Every year of it, I was doing what He called me to do.”

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