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E! News anchor Giuliana Rancic went back to work last Tuesday just two weeks after undergoing a double mastectomy and reconstruction surgery. It wasn’t easy for her at all. The reality star told The Today Show in an interview on Friday that she feels great now, but that the immediate post-op recovery period was “hell” and that it was “horrible.”

“I knew this was going to be a tough surgery, but I in no way want to minimize it,” Giuliana told Matt Lauer during an interview on NBC’s the “Today” show on Friday. “Yes, I’m two and a half weeks out, but up until a week and a half ago it was hell. It was horrible.”

The 37-year-old E! TV host also revealed she suffered from an unforeseen complication that made the recovery process even more difficult – she was unable to tolerate morphine, the pain medication used to manage her post-surgery pain.

“I went into surgery at 4 PM and got out around 9:30 PM,” she told Matt. “By 4 AM I had to get off the morphine because I was so sick and I thought to myself, ‘[If you throw up] you have to engage all of your chest muscles,’ and I just had my chest operated on.”

Though she’s “feeling great” now, Giuliana still relies on husband Bill Rancic to help her accomplish everyday tasks while she continues to recover.

“I can’t really turn much to put my seatbelt on,” she said. “He has to help me get in and out of bed, get dressed…it’s a lot of limited mobility and pain.”

[From omg.yahoo.com]

Toward the end of that interview, Matt asked Giuliana’s husband Bill if he was afraid that she was pushing herself too hard after having surgery. He said “We don’t do anything without the doctor’s approval. This is something that she was intent on doing. She wanted to turn the negative into a positive. The response and the number of people who said ‘I went in and got my first mammogram…’ it’s worth it if you can save one life during this process.” As I mentioned in an earlier story, I did get an appointment with an OB/GYN to look at my tatas. She did a sonogram of my breast tissue and said that everything looks fine and that it wasn’t necessary for me to get a mammogram at this point. I honestly would not have made that appointment if it wasn’t for Giuliana’s story.

In a way I don’t think Giuliana is painting a realistic picture of this process at all. Even if she’s saying that the post op recovery was “horrible,” we’re seeing her looking perfect on TV two weeks later. I would like to see her take more time before going back to work. If she wasn’t such a motivated go-getter, she might not be as open with the press about her cancer battle, though. She’s definitely helped raise awareness of a disease that affects so many women.

Giuliana is shown interviewing Angelina Jolie on 12-5-11 and with Bill on 9-8-11. Credit: WENN.com

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Giuliana Rancic underwent surgery for breast cancer Tuesday, having made the announcement that she had cancer on Monday on the Today show. A lot of people were wondering why Giuliana waited until now to have her breast cancer treated when it was discovered back in August. It’s unclear why she decided to take the time to both make the announcement and treat her cancer, but it’s possible she was waiting until she either had a break in her schedule or was thoroughly off the hormones she was taking for her third round of IVF treatment. She explained on the Today show that she was in the midst of treatment and was taking hormones when the cancer was discovered. Luckily her cancer was discovered early, due to her doctor’s insistence that she get a mammogram before another round of IVF.

As an aside, many of you have mentioned a possible connection between IVF hormones and cancer, particularly breast cancer. The Today Show had a doctor on earlier this week who addressed this issue. She said there is no known link between IVF and cancer and chalked it up to a correlation between older women getting IVF and having higher cancer rates. Other doctors note that more research into the long term effects of IVF is needed.

Giuliana’s husband Bill Rancic was on The Today Show to talk about his wife’s recovery. He was very positive about how well she did during her operation, and was also very sweet and supportive. He said that he wishes he could take on some of the pain and the burden for her. He is doing that, just by being there for her.

As Giuliana Rancic recovers from surgery following her recent revelation that she is battling breast cancer, the E! News anchor’s supportive husband, Bill Rancic, gave an update on the Today show this morning.

“She’s a trouper, she pulled through it and was kind of relieved to get it over with and get the cancer out and is doing well at home,” Bill said while talking about the double lumpectomy that his wife had just undergone. “It was kind of a long day. There’s many steps in the process when you go through this because it was on both breasts.”

However, he and Giuliana remain positive.

“We’re viewing this as a gift,” insisted Bill. “It was caught very, very early and we’re going back to the doctor tomorrow. They had to remove a couple of lymph nodes and we’re hoping we get a report tomorrow.”

While the next step for Giuliana will be radiation treatment, the Fashion Police cohost is planning to get back to work next week.

“She’s excited,” Bill said. “But she’s really viewing life a little bit differently. It’s funny, when you go through a situation like this, it really turns the volume down on the things that really aren’t that important.”

[From E! Online]

At the end of the interview, Bill said they’ve received a lot of tweets from people saying they’ve scheduled mammograms and “that was the goal” of going public with their story.

I didn’t realize that Giuliana had cancer in both breasts! That’s rough, and thank goodness they caught it early. I hope that these two are able to realize their dream of having children soon.

These photos are from 9/8/11 and 5/7/11. Credit: WENN.com

Octomom is getting her uterus partially removed! Now I’m not trying to throw a party or anything here… I’m just saying. Some of it is coming out. Turns out, the reason Nadya couldn’t get pregnant naturally is that she has uterine fibroids. She found out before she got pregnant with the octuplets. Since then, the fibroids have grown, so she has to get a myomectomy. Depending on the specifics, enough of the uterus can be preserved so that a woman is still fertile – so this is no guarantee she won’t have more babies.

Octo-Mom Nadya Suleman will check into the hospital this weekend to have benign fibroid tumors removed from her uterus — a procedure that will make further pregnancies virtually impossible, RadarOnline.com has exclusively learned.

Suleman will leave her eight infants and six older children in the care of her nannies, as the procedure and recovery is expected to take up to seven days.

In a brand new interview, Nadya talks about her fears as she prepares to go under the knife. “I’m terrified”, she tells us, and adds that she needs to get a will done, just as a precaution.

[From Radar]

Radar also has a video interview with Nadya (of course). She mentions that she’s scared and hasn’t gone under anesthesia in 18 years, when she had a breast reduction. One of the Radar reporters asks her if the fibroid surgery is all she’s having done, and I got the impression he was asking if she was having anything cosmetic done while she was there. Nadya didn’t seem to get what he was hinting at though and just said that was all and she’s scared to death just to do this surgery.

Nadya lies about a bunch of crap to get attention. And she tends to minimize big things, so there’s no way to know if this surgery really is happening, and if it’s really what she says. She should be out of commission for at least a week, so I guess we’ll see. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s getting something else done either instead of or in addition to the fibroid issue. Nadya’s generally not as forthcoming with the truth as she’d like us to believe.

She sure seems remarkably comfortable in front of the camera. Like she’s talking to a good friend or something. She’s very casual and giggly. Strange, you’d almost think she wanted to be in front of the lens…

Here’s Nadya dropping her kids off at school on May 1st. Images thanks to BauerGriffinOnline.

Star Jones appears on Oprah today in an episode about losing weight in the public eye. From the advance clips she actually comes off as somewhat humble and less self-involved than she was before she was axed from The View.

Star says she had gastric bypass surgery in 2006 not to take an easy way out – it wasn’t – but because her weight was so drastically affecting her health that her doctor told her she was going to die. Jones says she was – for all intents and purposes – an addict, and despite the consequences to her health, she simply could not stop eating.

Star Jones — whose rapid weight loss played into her rocky exit from “The View” in 2006 — denies she took an easy way out having gastric bypass surgery and without the changes, Jones was told she would have died.

“I’m still 300 pounds in my head some days,” Jones told Oprah Winfrey in a taped episode airing Wednesday. Jones admitted she was scared to disappoint people and ashamed that she wasn’t able to control her weight.

“… I was an addict for all practical purposes, that I had never stuck to a real diet, that I’d never stuck to a real exercise program, and that when confronted by my doctor and the doctor said if you don’t make changes, you will die. I had no choice.” Jones said. “When you hear people say, oh, you took the easy way out, I would have longed for an easy way. It was not an easy way. It was this — the hardest struggle of my whole entire life and I still struggle.”

Jones responded to remarks by former co-host Barbara Walters that after the surgery, the show’s audience couldn’t relate to Jones anymore.

“I was hurt and upset initially,” Jones said. “I’m so sorry that I placed a burden on my colleagues. I never asked them to lie.”

[From the Chicago Sun-Times]

I’ve always been sort of confused by the accusation that people who get gastric bypass or gastric band surgery are taking the easy way out. It seems like a pretty extreme, hardcore, and painful way to go about it. I’d rather do a million diets than have to go that route. To me it’s what people do as an absolute last resort – whether it’s because they can’t otherwise control a food addiction, are suffering from diabetes (it has a high instance of reversing the disease even before significant weight loss is achieved), or simply have bodies that are resistant to weight loss. And the side effects sound really miserable, and they can be permanent.

I think the reason The View’s audience couldn’t relate to Star after her surgery wasn’t that she was thin; it was how obnoxious she was. She already came across as self-absorbed and full of herself at times (the whole fiasco about her constantly using the show to promote her wedding didn’t win her any fans), and the weight loss appeared to magnify those personality traits in her. Getting fired from the show did seem to humble Star, and when she admitted to the surgery she became a little less disliked in the public eye.

It’s time for Star to become something other than “the lady who got weight loss surgery and was fired from The View.” Her CourtTV show was canceled, and it doesn’t seem like she’s been up to much since then. Dragging up tired feuds is getting old.

Here’s Star Jones leaving her Manhattan hotel on January 20th. Images thanks to WENN .

Robin Williams recently experienced chest pain and shortness of breath on his first stand up tour in six years, causing him to be admitted to the Intensive Care Unit. Robin underwent heart surgery on March 13th, and his rep (and his doctors) describe the operation as successful, and expect him to make a full recovery.

In a statement from Williams’s rep, Mara Buxbaum, the Ohio clinic staff cardiothoracic surgeon, A. Marc Gillinov, M.D., said, “Williams’s operation went extremely well, and we expect him to make a full recovery.”

The procedure, which took 3½ hours, “was conducted to replace his aortic valve, repair his mitral valve and correct his irregular heartbeat,” said the doctor – who termed Williams’s heart “strong” and foresaw no limitations insofar as his patient’s future physical activities.

“A couple hours after surgery, he was entertaining the medical team and making us all laugh,” according to Gillinov.

People

What great news! Robin Williams in only 57, and although his parents were long lived (his mum was 79 and dad was 81 when they passed) his brother died of complications from heart surgery in August 2007, so this surgery must have been scary for Robin, as it would be for anyone. His brother is said to have been ‘older’ than Robin but there’s no source that gives his exact age.

Robin has a history of cocaine addiction during the late 1970′s and early 1980′s, the catalyst for giving up the drugs was the birth of his son Zak in 1983. In 2006 Robin slipped off the wagon and entered rehab for alcoholism. He has also recently gotten divorced from his wife of 19 years, so I guess all of these recent events could have had an accumulative effect on his health.

According to his rep, Robin will pick up his Weapons of Self-Destruction tour in the fall. This is great news and we’re looking forward to hearing confirmation that he is well enough to work again.

Robin Williams is shown at the People’s Choice Awards on 1/17/09. Credit: Sarah Cullen/Fame Pictures

Talkshow hostess and Martha Stewart wannabe Rachael Ray may have to take a two month hiatus from her show. The National Enquirer repors that doctors found a growth near her larynx and she’ll have to undergo surgery to remote it by the end of the year. It is not cancerous, but could be dangerous to her health. Rachael used to be a heavy smoker although she has since quit. The surgery will leave her unable to speak for up to two months and she is trying to pre-tape shows in preparation. It sounds like it is just recommended that she take two months to heal, and that she may not lose her voice entirely:

While the 40-year-old super chef has remained her usual perky, upbeat self as her new TV season unfolds, behind the scenes she and husband John Cusimano have been meeting with medical specialists about the operation that will be performed before the end of the year, say sources.

The former heavy smoker was stunned when doctors recently discovered a potentially dangerous growth near her larynx, says an insider…

Dr. Thomas, who has not treated the TV chef, told The Enquirer:

“With and growths in that area, there is always a very real concern about cancer. There was obviously a cancer scare for the patient. Fortunately, the biopsy showed the growth to be benign, but it still must be removed so it doesn’t interfere with the voice or breathing.”

[From The National Enquirer, print edition, October 13, 2008]

The expert quoted by the Enquirer goes on to say that two months is a longer recovery peroid than usual, but that when you rely on your voice to work you need to take time to heal after a throat operation. He said “To speak effectively on TV as Rachel must do could take up to two months.”

Many people say that Rachael has overstepped her capabilities with her new show despite its success. She was overperky but tolerable as a cooking show hostess and some find her style in a talk show format grating. She tends to interrupt and not let her guests talk enough. It looks like she’ll be forced to listen more in life, even if we won’t be privy to a speechless Ray on television.

It’s a rough thing to go through a cancer scare and not be able to talk much for two months and our thoughts go out to Ray. Throat surgeries can be risky and hopefully she has a very competent surgeon.

Update: Ray’s rep says this report is overblown and that although she does need surgery to remove a cyst on her vocal cord it is only a minor procedure with a recovery time of two weeks, not two months. They say the surgery is “a common in-and-out procedure that she will have in early December and it will not adversely effect any of her daytime show or Food Network tapings.”

Rachael Ray is shown below at the Daytime Emmy Awards on 6/20/08. Credit: PRPhotos. She is shown in the header at an event for City Harvest on 9/18/08. Credit: WENN

By all reports Morgan Freeman is doing significantly better than hoped after his serious car accident late Sunday evening. The final assessment of his injuries is that he has a broken elbow, broken arm, and some sort of “shoulder damage,” according to his rep. Considering he was in a rollover accident, it sounds like he got pretty lucky.

Morgan Freeman is on the mend after a Sunday night car crash that resulted in his being airlifted to a hospital in Memphis.

“Morgan is doing well after his surgery last night to reconnect nerves and repair damage in his left arm and hand,” his spokesperson, Donna Lee, said in a statement Tuesday.

“The surgery last night lasted four and a half hours. He’s visiting with family this morning. As of this morning he’s up and walking around and looking forward to his release in a few days.”

Freeman, 71, was driving in Mississippi’s Tallahatchie County when the accident occurred. Extracted from the wreck by emergency crews using the jaws of life, the Dark Knight actor was said to be “in good spirits” Monday after he reached the Regional Medical Center at Memphis, where his surgery took place.

[From People]

Despite initial reports that Freeman might have fallen asleep at the wheel, it’s now being speculated that heavy rain caused the accident. According to someone who lives near the accident scene, the car skidded on the slick road and flipped multiple times, before landing upright in a ditch that had at least eight inches of water.

There were also gardening tools, recipes, herbs, and spices scattered around the accident scene. The neighbor also said that Freeman was initially unconscious but came to very quickly and was talking to emergency personnel. It sounds like he should be okay and out of the hospital relatively quickly.

Here’s Morgan Freeman with Jack Nicholson at the premiere of “The Bucket List” in Paris on July 17th. Images thanks to Fame.

Last night at the MLB All-Star Game at Yankees Stadium, New Yorker Sarah Jessica Parker joined Sheryl Crow on the field to spread the word about a new alliance between baseball and Hollywood to fund cancer research. The charity sounds great, but all anyone could talk about was the conspicuous absence of Parker’s trademark chin mole.

Sarah Jessica Parker attended Tuesday night’s All-Star game, and hit the field beforehand for an announcement about cancer research. Parker has long had a trademark mole on her chin, which has been visible throughout her career.

But at the game, as seen in an unairbrushed AP photo, no mole. At least one of the remarkably cruel reviews of “Sex and the City: The Movie” commented on her beauty mark. The New York Observer’s Rex Reed began his review with the following:

There’s nothing wrong with Sarah Jessica Parker that couldn’t be cured by wart-removal surgery. That growth on her face just gets bigger with every close-up, and in the full-length movie version of Sex and the City it’s so distracting you can’t concentrate on anything else. It’s not a beauty mark. I guess you can’t tell a co-producer anything, but listen up, girl. At this point, you would make a wonderful Halloween witch.

No word – if indeed she has had the mole removed, if it was for medical of cosmetic reasons.

[From Huffington Post]

As a melanoma survivor, I can tell you that facial moles like the one Sarah had are at greater risk to become cancerous over the years, due to the fact that your face gets so much sun exposure. Many dermatologists suggest having them removed before they get to that point. Perhaps her reason for having the mole removed wasn’t cosmetic. But if so, it’s her business, isn’t it? I actually think she looks much better without it. But that doesn’t mean I think it’s okay for people like Rex Reed, who is a grade-A jerkoff, to bash her over it, either.

Comedienne Rosanne Barr is so sarcastic that it’s hard to tell when she’s being truthful. However it seems that she was telling the truth – or I guess oversharing – last night on the Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson when she told Craig that she’d had vaginal rejuvenation surgery. Craig asks her what it’s like being out there as a single woman, and she mentions that she had the surgery and she know has a “vajunior” instead of a vagina. So clearly she was planning on sharing it as a part of a bit, but it still seems like she meant what she said.

Comedian Roseanne Barr talked to Craig Ferguson Wednesday night and claimed to have had vaginal rejuvenation. Talking about how she’s single, Roseanne told the “Late, Late Show” host, “I went and had vaginal rejuvenation surgery. No, I did! And now I have a va-junior. And I’m not afraid to use it.”

True or just part of her stand-up routine? It’s unclear. But, she still knows how to shock and make an audience laugh.

[From the Huffington Post]

It’s certainly not beyond the realm of possibility, as Rosanne’s gone under the knife before. She had a gastric bypass in March of 1998, and since then has had a nose job and a breast reduction. And she’s always been very candid with people… some might argue a little too much so. According to the Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation Institute of Los Angeles, vaginal rejuvenation “will effectively enhance the vaginal muscle tone, strength, and control.” There’s a lot of other stuff it does too, but I’ll let you look that up for yourself.

Here’s the clip from last night’s “Late, Late Show.”

I don’t want to give away my age, but in junior high, I was obsessed with Prince. I must have seen “Purple Rain” 10 times, listened to the soundtrack non-stop, and even started wearing purple clothes and lace gloves. Hey, don’t judge me!

Somehow, Prince has aged since then. The funky pop singer is now 46, and all those years of sexy dancing have taken a toll on his body – specifically, his hips.

Reports surfaced about a year ago that decades of dancing in those high heels the ladies love caused serious damage to one of his hips and that he needs a replacement. That’s a pretty big deal considering that Prince’s stage show has long been a James Brown-styled affair, full of spins, splits and bumping and grinding against pianos, microphone stands, and other inanimate objects. It’s pretty tough to do those things with a bad wheel.

[From ESPN News]

Now, Prince is going to have the hip replaced in a major surgery so he can avoid walking with a limp and a cane. Because that would not be funky.

Pop legend Prince is having a secret HIP REPLACEMENT at the age of just 49—after being crippled by years of sexy dancing.

The pint-sized US star would develop a severe limp and have to use a WALKING STICK without surgery.

So he is booking himself into a private hospital. Aides are keeping his diary clear for two months to recover—but they’re not letting on why he cannot work in that time.

During the two-hour op—more common for OAPs—the Purple Rain singer will have the ball and socket of his damaged hip taken out and titanium replacements cemented in.

A source said: “For months Prince has complained of pain every time he moves.

“He is totally crushed as he knows he will never be the same again.”

[From News of the World]

I hope the surgery goes well and we see Prince back to doing splits, grinding and spinning very soon. And as a long time fan, I don’t even mind if he does it without the high heels. As long as he’s not wearing, you know, Crocs or something.

Picture note by Celebitchy: Prince is shown performing at London Fashion week on 9/19/07, thanks to PRPhotos.