Al Roker’s wife has opened up about caring for the Today show weatherman amid her recent life-threatening health crisis.
Deborah Roberts, Roker’s wife of 27 years, recently spoke to Entertainment Tonight about her experience caring for him while he was in the hospital and recovering after a significant 7-hour operation.
“I think a lot of people don’t realize — and I never realized — that being a caretaker is incredibly hard, exhausting, scary, all of those things, and I’ve never gone through anything like this,” she told the site. “And I hope I don’t do it again.”
“But it’s difficult,” the 62-year-old added. “It’s difficult. Still, I believe, healing. I’m still fatigued. I’m still psychologically exhausted, but you know what, I’m glad and just trying to bathe and be pleased that he’s well and we’re all okay.”
Roberts, an ABC News senior national affairs journalist and contributing anchor for 20/20, then joked that she knows Roker, 68, is doing well because he’s “back to driving me crazy,” admitting that she’s pleased she could lean on her loved ones through the difficult time.
“My faith and spirituality got me through it,” she remarked. “My family got me through it; my coworkers, many of whom are here today, boosted me up when I felt like I couldn’t make it; people were there, texting, emailing, and phoning, and that made all the difference.”
Beginning in early November, when he was diagnosed with blood clots that had traveled from his leg to his lungs, Roker was hospitalized twice for nearly two weeks at a stretch at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.
Roker has previously suffered health concerns, including a prostate cancer diagnosis in 2020. But the most recent fright pushed him dangerously close to death, which horrified Roberts, she told PEOPLE in January.
“I was bracing myself to chat with the kids about the prospect of losing their father,” Roberts said of their daughters Leila, 24, Nicholas, 20, and his previous wife’s daughter Courtney, 35.
“I’m blessed to be alive,” Roker continued.
Roker continued, “Without you, I would not be here. There’s no doubt about that, yet here we are.”
