Medical Crisis: ‘Little Women’s Christy Gibel Suffers Stroke After Neck Surgery

Christy McGinity Gibel is recovering from a terrifying medical crisis.

The Little Women: LA star suffered a mini-stroke during neck surgery late last year, she tells RadarOnline.com in an exclusive interview.

“I am not the same, and may never be,” the married mom, 39, reveals. “Every day is an uphill battle to do things in my life that I took for granted, like speaking.”

After the November 29 operation to replace two damaged discs, Gibel expected to quickly return to health. But what she believed were normal side effects of surgery turned out to be much more serious.

“The pain was the worst I have ever felt,” she recalls.

Nearly three months later, Gibel is working with multiple therapists each week to regain “basic life skills” — and will likely continue recovery treatment for “a very long time,” she says.

The matriarch — who lives with her teen daughter Autumn, husband Todd, and parents, including her cancer-stricken father — is now more concerned with her family than her own health.

“How can I take care of my family? I am still the mama bear of the house, and expected to run it, sick or not,” she says. “Am I ever going to be ‘Christy’ again? The constant set backs really played with my mind. They still do.”

Sadly, after she battled with costars Terra Jole, Briana Renee and Tonya Banks last season, Gibel claims only cast member has visited her in recent months.

The shocking diss “really played with my head,” she admits. “I work with these girls. Fighting or not, I am concerned with their well-being. It's called being human!”