‘Today’ Host Al Roker Shares Update From the Hospital Following Shoulder Surgery

Al Roker is sharing good news from his hospital bed! After undergoing a total shoulder replacement surgery at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City for arthritis in his right shoulder, Roker shared a positive update with his followers Wednesday on Instagram, thanking everyone for the “good wishes and prayers” and sharing a timeline for his recovery.

“I can’t lift my arm, but I have been told by Dr. Riley Williams my surgery was a success,” he says in the video after being moved into the recovery room. “Now comes the hard part of doing all the physical therapy, but that won’t start until Monday.” Roker previously said on TODAY Tuesday he would be out until next week recovering, but would be returning to the show remotely after that. He is expecting to undergo physical therapy for up to 10 days, and will wear a sling for three weeks.

This is Roker’s second shoulder operation in six years, having also undergone a rotator cuff repair in 2014. In 2016, Roker took two weeks off of work after undergoing a second knee replacement, and in 2018, he had emergency carpal tunnel surgery, returning to work the next day. Last fall, he also had hip replacement surgery. “The deal is that I’m going to have replaced everything by 2027,” Roker joked on TODAY.

The necessity of his shoulder surgery came from the emergence of “intense pain” that has been keeping him from sleeping. “It’s not bad during the day, but at night it’s an intense pain that literally wakes me up,” Roker explained. “For the last month, I’ve only been sleeping about two or three hours a night, which even for me is a little bit less.”

He’s not the only TODAY anchor to be out on surgical leave recently. Last month, Savannah Guthrie underwent a second eye surgery to fix complications from her initial retinal detachment repair in December 2019, prompted when 3-year-old son Charley threw a toy at her face. “I’m so grateful my surgery was a success! I’m still healing but already noticing a major improvement in my vision. My eyes are filled — with tears of joy!” Guthrie wrote on social media following her surgery. She added to PEOPLE, “I don’t think my eye will ever be the way it once was, but I think it will be much improved.”