“Wheel of Fortune” host Pat Sajak was rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery on a blocked intestine last month, which led to Vanna White taking over his role for several shows.
Now, he’s revealing to “Good Morning America” that the pain was so intense that he thought he was dying.
Sajak said that he had just come home from a morning walk with his daughter when the pain hit him.
“I didn’t know what it [was] — but within two and a half hours, I was in surgery,” Sajak said. “It was that quick and intense.”
“You couldn’t do anything. I was in the fetal position, lying on the bed,” he said. “They try to give you various drugs for the pain. And none of it — none — was working. And then they gave me something, I couldn’t even tell you the name of it, but suddenly, I wasn’t thinking about the pain. I just had these beautiful pastels and lovely faces coming out of it.”
“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,” he continued. “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,” he joked
Sajak said that now that the surgery is over, he’s feeling much better.
“I’m feelin’ great,” he said. “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.”
