Whoopi Goldberg Took a Long Time to Recover from Pneumonia and Doctors Explain Why

Actress and TV host Whoopi Goldberg, who has been working in “The View” for several years already, took a long break due to a nearly fatal case of double pneumonia.

February 6 was the last time that Whoopi Goldberg participated on the show before staying home recovering from the previously mentioned disease. On March 14, more than a month later, she made a surprise appearance that not even her co-hosts expected.

A few days before that, “The View” showed a clip that Goldberg recorded from her home sharing more details about her condition.

“You do realize how close to death you were?” her doctor asked.

DIGGING INTO THE ILLNESS

First, she said that she had pneumonia and it was septic. As Mayo Clinic explained, pneumonia “is an infection that inflames the air sacs in one or both lungs.” In the actress’ case, she had double pneumonia, meaning that both lungs were infected.

Goldberg added that she “came very, very close to leaving the Earth” and thanked everybody for their good wishes. About a week later, she joined “The View” panel and shocked everybody.

SURPRISING EVERYBODY

After sharing many hugs and kisses, Goldberg said that pneumonia was not done with her yet as she still had a cough which is “the last thing to go, apparently,” but that she wanted to pay a visit to her co-hosts because she missed them.

Later, she pointed out that the X-ray she got of her chest was shocking as one of her lungs was completely white, “which meant there was stuff in there.” Goldberg also revealed the scariest moment she faced during the illness, and it was when her doctor told her, “you do realize how close to death you were?”

TAKING HER TIME TO HEAL

According to a study published in Patient Related Outcome Measures, community-acquired pneumonia (the cases caught outside a hospital setting) takes approximately 21 days to be completely healed in adults over 50 years old, although about 60% of patients experience at least one symptom six weeks later.

Experts revealed that it takes so long because respiratory infections make the body create a lot of mucus in its effort to defend itself, something quite difficult to get out.

EXPERTS’ EXPLANATION

Pulmonary Disease Specialist Harihan Regunath stated that people have to “cough it up and spit it up or else it has to dissolve by the white blood cells engulfing it and digesting it and clearing it. It’s a very slow process.”

Also, the immune system of older people (Goldberg is 63 years old) is not as good as young ones, so it is only natural that it is more difficult for them to recover. Thankfully, “The View” host is better and learned that she has to take very good care of her health to avoid such illnesses to happen.