Wheel Of Fortune has been a constant on television for the past four decades, and until recently, host Pat Sajak had never missed a show. However, fans were in for a shock when in early December he was briefly replaced by co-host Vanna White.
The show revealed that Pat had had to undergo “emergency surgery” that would leave him unable to host the show for three weeks’ worth of episodes.
While thankfully Pat is already back to filming episodes and feeling much healthier, a new interview with Good Morning America revealed how dire his situation really was.
RELATED STORIES
Pat revealed he was in “excruciating” pain due to a blocked intestine.
“You couldn’t do anything. I was in [a] fetal position, lying on the bed,” Pat said. “They try to give you various drugs for the pain. And none of it, none, was working.”
“In the background, I could hear my wife and daughter talking. It sounded like they were a mile off, but they were right next to me,” Pat revealed.
“They were talking to each other. And I remember thinking, not in a morbid way, ‘I think this must be death. This must be what death is like.'”
“Hearing their voices, I thought, ‘Boy, their lives are gonna change now.'”
“And I felt badly for them. I didn’t feel badly about dying. I felt badly that they were gonna have to deal with the aftermath. As it turned out, I was just high.”
Pat says he is now “feeling great.”
“I’ve actually felt ridiculously good for several weeks. I’ve been back in the studio actually, doing shows. Even spinning the wheel and, you know, nothing has popped. So I think it’s OK,” Pat joked.
