Savannah Guthrie had an emotional moment when she got to hear her ‘new voice’ for the first time after undergoing vocal surgery.
The Today co-anchor explained how ‘hard’ it was for her to face days of silence and being alone during the week-long recovery period after the surgery.
In a clip that aired on the NBC morning show on Friday, she broke down in tears during a follow-up doctor’s appointment and hugged him when she heard her voice for the first time eight days post-procedure.
Guthrie, 54, was away from the Today show for three weeks while recovering before she made her anticipated return.
When asked about what she learned from a week of silence, she reflected on how ‘hard’ and ‘spiritual’ the past month had been for her.
‘It was hard at first like you have to get used to like you have to get the hang of silence and solitude and being alone with yourself,’ Guthrie admitted.
Savannah Guthrie returned to the Today show on Friday after three-week absence as she underwent vocal cord surgery
During the show, Guthrie shared a clip of herself breaking down in tears after she heard her ‘new voice’ for the first time after a week of silence
‘It actually can be kind of terrifying,’ she continued. ‘But I found it to be a beautiful, beautiful moment and spiritual moment, and I’m so grateful.’
She explained how she did not talk for eight days and was ‘almost silent for about a week after that.’
Her fellow co-anchors even joked that they ‘couldn’t recognize her voice’ after weeks of having not heard her talk.
At the beginning of the segment, Guthrie was heard narrating and explaining why she got the surgery and what the process was like.
Over a montage of news clips with her then-brunette self in front of the camera, she began: ‘Back in 2008, my first year working for NBC News, I not only looked different, I sounded different too.’
Over the years, I noticed my voice got deeper and scratchier, but what I thought was just normal wear and tear and aging, over time, [my voice] got much more noticeable — and this past year, much worse.
She said ‘sometimes it was hard to get through a sentence,’ so she said she sought help from Dr. Peak Wu, one of the country’s leading voice specialists.
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Guthrie’s vocal specialist, Dr. Peak Wu, removed a polyp and a nodule on each side of the TV anchor’s vocal cords
After the one-hour surgery, she said she was tasked with ‘maybe one of the hardest assignments of my life’ as she had to be on vocal rest and ‘stay silent’ for eight days
The doctor found that on each side of her vocal cords, she had a hemorrhagic polyp — which Guthrie explained was a ‘ruptured blood vessel’ — and on the other, a vocal nodule or a ‘callus from overuse’ on the other.
She said she underwent microscopic laryngeal surgery to relieve her ‘beleaguered vocal cords.’
She documented before and after getting the surgery.
The morning of the procedure, she recorded a clip of herself saying she ‘can’t wait’ and was, at the time, ‘so ready to get this over with and have a normal voice again.
After the one-hour surgery, she said she was tasked with ‘maybe one of the hardest assignments of my life’ as she had to be on vocal rest and ‘stay silent’ for eight days.
Post-surgery and in a recovery room, Guthrie’s husband filmed a video of her smiling and communicating by putting pen to paper.
After not speaking a single word for a week, Guthrie went back to the doctor’s office for the ‘big reveal’
‘I am using my voice for the first time [since the surgery], and it sounds good, I could cry,’ a tearful Guthrie said before hugging the doctor
She said after not speaking a single word for a week, she went back to the doctor’s office for the ‘big reveal.’
Under his instruction, she slowly started talking and recited her introduction on the Today morning show as she had done for years as an anchor.
‘I am using my voice for the first time [since the surgery], and it sounds good, I could cry,’ she said before hugging the doctor and wiping away her tears.
She explained how she has been going to voice therapy sessions and returned to the show on Friday, January 23 after taking three weeks off to heal and recover her voice.
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