The Real Housewives star says she was misdiagnosed and sent home while her body was unknowingly fighting a massive infection, triggering a bout of amnesia that left her with “hours” of her life she still doesn’t remember.
Vicki Gunvalson is opening up about a “deadly” health crisis she experienced earlier this month.
During Monday’s episode of the My Friend, My Soulmate, My Podcast show, The Real Housewives of Orange County star recalled the health scare, which left her with amnesia, causing her to lose “a lot of hours” in her life.
“There seems to be about an hour or two that I was missing and I don’t know where I was,” Gunvalson shared, before explaining that she began “talking gibberish” to a client that was in her office.
The client in question happened to be a retired doctor who urged her boyfriend, Michael Smith’s daughter Olivia, that the reality star could be “having a stroke.”
“I don’t remember anything and [Olivia] took me to the hospital,” Gunvalson recalled.
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The 62-year-old Bravolebrity said physicians ultimately misdiagnosed her with a sinus infection and discharged her from the hospital later that night. When she went home, she took antibiotics, but out of an abundance of caution, Olivia insisted her father come home and care for the reality star.
“She was lethargic and she really didn’t understand where she was,” Michael said on the podcast, noting that the doctors “kind of ran with” the sinus infection diagnosis after being told Gunvalson recently recovered from one.
Things went from bad to worse when Michael said he found Gunvalson “pretty much passed out” in a bubble bath, calling it “one of the scariest” moments of her health crisis.
“I grabbed her, pulled her out of the water, put her in bed. The doctor said she just needed to sleep, so I put her in bed and she slept literally 13, 14 hours straight,” he recalled. After this, and with growing concern, he took her back to the hospital.
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“She had a massive infection. It was actually sepsis, but it was pneumonia,” Michael revealed, “And what happened … is that when your body is fighting that big of an infection and that dangerous of an infection, your whole body attacks it, which affects the brain and everything else in your body because your body sends everything it has to fight it.”
The Coto Insurance founder is still grappling with the impact of the health scare, growing emotional as she told listeners just how close to death her neurologist told her she was.
“I had a 10 to 20 percent [chance of survival],” Gunvalson revealed as she held back tears. “I cry a lot, and Michael keeps saying, ‘Why do you keep crying?’ I don’t have an answer.”
She continued, “I mean, rewind a week ago, we were in Barcelona walking 16 [to] 20,000 steps and we were having the time of our life, and three days later, [I’m in the hospital].”
Michael assured fans, however, that despite the terrifying time, Gunvalson’s health is improving.
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“She will be fine,” he said. “She’s coming out of it.”
Gunvalson, now just a “Friend” on the show, has had her fair share of health complications over the years, with the RHOC star most recently opening up about an infection during her recent appearance following a trip to the plastic surgeon.
She’s also endured a few medical emergencies while filming, having to be carted off by EMT’s during cast trips and even taking a few tumbles during her time as a full-time Housewife.
