Matthew Stafford Shares Health Update About Wife Kelly Following Brain Tumor Surgery

Detroit Lions quarterback, Matthew Stafford is sharing an update about his wife, Kelly’s well-being and health following brain tumor surgery.

In an interview with “The Mitch Albom Show” on Detroit radio Thursday, Stafford revealed his wife was “right where the doctors need her to be,” according to the Detroit Free Press.

“She’s doing good. I think she’s kind of right where the doctors want her to be at this point in her recovery, but we appreciate everybody’s well wishes, thoughts, prayers, all that. People have been really supportive and I know she and I both really appreciate it,” Stafford said.

The 31-year-old went on to share how he and Kelly were overwhelmed by the support and love from everyone during their difficult period.

“I’m a little bit more used to people from all over kind of either being involved or knowing what’s going on in our life, but I think for her it was awesome and I know she leaned on it a lot, so it was great,” he said.

A day before Stafford spoke about Kelly, the 29-year-old mother-of-three shared a throwback image to her Instagram from the hospital alongside her husband, and credited the Detroit Lions star for taking care of her.

“If I look extremely exhausted, it’s because I was. I barely slept the night before. This picture was taken right after the surgeon came and marked ‘yes’ on the right side of my head, behind my ear, to know what side he would be cutting open,” she wrote. “That’s when it became real. That’s when it became so scary I began to tear up and shake a little. Then I looked at Matthew. He had been my rock through this entire thing and he was so calm.. and it calmed me.”

Kelly adds that the night before, she wrote the NFL star and their daughters letters, letting them know how much she loved them. While she admits it was a bit dramatic, she found the whole ordeal “terrifying” and didn’t want to take any chances.

“But here I am. Healthy and alive and beyond grateful for every day.. Enjoying my husband and family and getting used to my new norms,” she wrote, adding extreme thanks to her husband for “always putting” their family first. “Thank you Matthew…Thank you for always being my rock and keeping me at ease during the toughest time of my life. I’m lucky to know you and the man you are.. but mostly, I’m lucky you chose me to do life with. Thank you.”

Kelly underwent a 12-hour surgery on April 21 for an acoustic neuroma, a slow-growing tumor on the main nerve leading from the inner ear to the brain after breaking news of her tumor April 3.

In the post, she revealed to fans of the severity of her tumor and how she begun to “notice things,” springing from events in January, when she first experienced a vertigo spell that pushed her into the ER — something that she adds “kept happening,” even when she held their children. After Matthew took her to ER, Stafford wrote it was just a few days later that they were hit with the results.

“I had a tumor sitting on some of my cranial nerves,” she wrote at the time. “The medical term they used was an acoustic neuroma or vestibular schwannoma. All I heard was brain tumor [and] that they had to do surgery to take it out.. so that is what we are going to do [and] we believe we found the best doctor to do it.”

After Stafford returned to the hospital for additional treatment this past April, she is now back home with her family and happily recuperating.

Stafford and Kelly married in 2015, and share three daughters, 2-year-old twins and an 8-month-old.