On Monday, Oprah Winfrey told Ellen DeGeneres on her show that she had pneumonia after coming back from a trip abroad and had to cancel her work schedules.
“I thought I had a cold, but it wasn’t a cold,” said Winfrey. “I ended up in the emergency room, and they said, ‘You have pneumonia.’ And I go home with pneumonia, and pneumonia’s nothing to play with y’all. It’s very serious.”
The 65-year-old media executive said she took antibiotics that did not work so she went to see a pulmonologist who was appalled with the seriousness of her case.
Winfrey said, “I went back for another CT scan, and they said it’s actually worse, you should see a lung specialist. So I go into the lung specialist, and I say, ‘I’ve got a little rattling,’ and he puts the stethoscope [on my neck] and I see the ‘Oh s—’ face. It is like, ‘Oh, my — something’s wrong with you.’ I can see it, he didn’t hide it.”
She had severe pneumonia so her doctor advised her to cancel everything. “I never cancel anything; I work all the time when I’m sick! He goes, ‘You must cancel everything, you cannot fly for a month.’”
“When I walked in and I was better, he thanked me three times for getting better, and said, ‘Can I have a hug?’ and I could tell that he was like, ‘Not on my watch is this going to happen,’” continued Winfrey.
Pneumonia is a lung infection that can be mild or so severe that you have to go to the hospital,” according to WebMD. The disease happens when there is an inflammation of the air sacs (alveoli) in the lungs, which can cause breathlessness. Winfrey said, “Don’t play with it and get your flu shots and get your pneumonia shots. It’s nothing to play with. I’m trying to motivate people to take care of themselves and not get pneumonia.”
