Al Roker reflected on how far he’s come since his health scare last year. The TODAY weatherman shared an image on social media of how many steps he was taking at this time in 2022 and how many steps he takes these days. He’s made some impressive gains.
“A year ago, I was struggling after getting home from the hospital,” he wrote on Instagram. “This week marks 60 days in a row of 10k+ steps a day.”
In November 2022, Al was admitted to the hospital after a blood clot in his leg broke off and sent clots to his lungs. Soon after he returned home, he experienced internal bleeding and needed to be re-admitted to the hospital. Al had two bleeding ulcers and underwent a seven-hour surgery where doctors removed and fixed part of his colon, took out his gallbladder and repaired his duodenum, a part of the small intestine, TODAY.com previously reported.
By December, Al was taking baby steps while recovering at home. His activity counter reflected that, showing him taking as few as 1,262 steps a day and working his way up to 5,083 steps. It was an impressive number of steps based on how sick he was, which he learned about when wife, Deborah Roberts, and daughter, Leila Roker, shared the full story about his hospitalization.
“As we were decompressing and debriefing, Deborah and Leila talked about how difficult and bad it was,” he explained to TODAY.com in November 2023.
While he was shocked to learn how sick he was, Al used that experience to keep him focused.
“I still was not anywhere near 100%, but I certainly was much better and once I knew, I felt like, well that was bad, but I’m past that,” he said.
In May, he underwent a knee replacement and used that recovery to bolster his resolve.
“(I thought) well, what are you going to do? I’m just going to get better, and here we go, it’s next year,” he said. “I’m not one much for looking back. I would prefer to look forward.”
These days, a light walking day for Roker looks like 10,641 steps. On his most active day, he took 15,161 steps. It's all part of his ongoing health journey.
“(It’s) been a long road with a lot of folks helping me along the way,” Al wrote on Instagram.