Brooke Shields revealed new details about her fight to recovery after breaking her femur, undergoing multiple surgeries, and battling a staph infection that threated her ability to walk.
In January, the 55-year-old actress, was working out at a New York City gym when she fell off a balance board and broke her right femur.
Now the "Jane the Virgin" star is disclosing details of the accident and her subsequent recovery.
"It felt like it was all in slow motion. And then I just started screaming," she said of the moment she broke her femur to People. “Sounds came out that I've never heard before.”
When EMT arrived and placed Shields’ onto the stretcher, “survival mode” kicked in. She added, “I kept saying, 'I can feel my toes' because I was so afraid I was paralyzed."
The actress had two metal rods inserted into her hip. Shortly after her first operation, a broken portion of her right femur popped out and she immediately underwent a second surgery to add five more rods and a metal plate.
Less than three weeks later, Shields developed a very serious staph infection, requiring a third surgery on the IV site where she’d had three blood transfusions.
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Her husband, producer Chris Henchy, and daughters Rowan, 17, and Grier, 14, could not visit the hospital due to COVID-19.
"I'll never forget how hard the doctors and nurses worked and hearing their stories about COVID," she says. "I have asthma but I kept thinking, 'I feel blessed I can breathe.'”
Shields returned home and began twice-a-day workouts.
“For the first time in my entire life, I thought, 'I can't power through this,'" she recalled. "I can't even stand on my leg or go up a step. I need to relearn how to even walk. The feeling of helplessness is shocking."
"If anything, I'm a fighter," she continued.
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The mother of two continues to remain hopeful and she moves forward with her recovery.
"This is my journey, and if it took me breaking the largest bone in my body, then recovery is something I want to share," she said. "We have to believe in ourselves and encourage one another. There's no other way to get through life, period."
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