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Louise Thomas
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Former Real Housewives of Orange County star Vicki Gunvalson has opened up about her recent brush with death after she was “misdiagnosed” with a serious sinus infection.
The original cast member of the hit Bravo series, 62, discussed her health scare on the newest episode of her podcast, My Friend, My Soulmate, My Podcast, sharing that “there’s a lot of hours missing in my life because I had like amnesia. There seems to be about an hour or two that I was missing, and I don’t know where I was.”
Joined by her boyfriend Michael Smith, the reality star began by explaining that last week she went into her office speaking “gibberish.” After meeting with a client who happened to be a retired emergency room physician, she said he warned her she might be having a stroke.
Gunvalson’s daughter, Olivia, who works with Gunvalson at her insurance and financial services firm, took her to the hospital where she said she was “misdiagnosed as having a sinus infection” and discharged that evening.
Continuing the story, Smith said: “Three weeks ago, she had a sinus infection that was a little different where it lasted a little longer. She was really not feeling that well; she got on antibiotics, was doing better. We went to Europe. Everything was ok, for the most part. But then, when she got home on that Thursday night and Olivia called me when she was lethargic and she really didn’t understand where she was.
“So they put her in the hospital and they told the doctor that she had had the sinus infection a few weeks back, so they kinda ran with that and didn’t really get into any more detail. Well, it turns out they sent her home,” he added.
Recounting one of the “scariest” moments, Smith said he found Gunvalson passed out in the bathtub.
“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 the bed, and she slept literally 13, 14 hours straight, and I thought that was a little much. So I woke her up, and when I did, I tried to get her out of bed, and she had this kind of look on her face where she didn’t know where she was,” Smith said.
“When I tried to stand her up to take her to the restroom, she couldn’t walk. She was shuffling her feet. So she was so discombobulated on this whole thing, I was afraid she was having another stroke.”
Once again, she was taken to the hospital, where Smith said it wasn’t long before doctors discovered she had a “massive infection” that had turned into pneumonia and sepsis.
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Recalling what he had been told by the doctors, Smith explained: “When your body is fighting badly through 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.”
Gunvalson was put on several antibiotics, steroids, and “everything under the sun,” he added, confirming that she’s “getting better.”
The TV personality remembered asking a medical professional: “Did I hear this right that I had a 10 to 20 percent [chance of] survival?” to which they answered: “Yes, the sepsis that went to your body is deadly and you survived it. And so you’re going to be okay. It’s just going to take a while.”
She said she’s still recovering and has very low energy, admitting that she has “a little bit of trauma from” the medical scare.
“I cry a lot,” she said, “and Michael keeps saying, ‘Why do you keep crying?’ And I don’t have an answer.”
Gunvalson rose to fame as one of the main Real Housewives of Orange County stars. She featured on the show for 14 years before exiting the show in 2020. She’s since made several cameos in seasons 16, 17 and 18.
