RHOC's Vicki Gunvalson Details Memory Loss From "Deadly" Health Scare That Nearly Killed Her
Vicki Gunvalson is lucky to be alive after a recent health scare.
The Real Housewives of Orange County star revealed she suffered stoke-like symptoms last week while at work at Coto Insurance in Southern California.
"I had a client coming in and she said I was talking gibberish," Vicki shared on the Aug. 26 episode of her podcast My Friend, My Soumate, My Podcast, "and I wrote an email out and the email didn't make sense."
The reality star didn't even realize she was behaving strangely until her boyfriend Michael Smith's daughter Olivia suggested she might be having a stroke.
“I don’t remember anything," the 62-year-old added, "and she took me to the hospital."
Vicki said she was diagnosed with a sinus infection and went home, where Michael later found her seemingly unconscious.
"One of the scariest things for me was when I walked in, for some reason, Vicki decided she wanted to take a bath," Michael, who joined Vicki and cohost Christian Gray Snow on the podcast, explained. "So she's in the bathtub with water and I walk in and she's pretty much passed out. So I grabbed her, that was scary, and I grabbed her, pulled her out of the water, put her in bed."
The next day, Vicki visited the doctor again and got a much more serious diagnosis.
“She had a massive infection," Michael revealed. "It was actually sepsis but it was pneumonia."
"The way they explained it is that when your body is fighting that big of an infection," he continued, "your whole body attacks it what affects the brain and everything else in your body because your body sends everything it has to fight it."
Vicki recently had a follow-up call with her neurologist's office and learned just how serious the infection was.
"I said, 'Did I hear this right? That I had a 10 to 20 percent [chance of] survival?'" the Bravolebrity told Christian during the episode. "She said, 'Yes, the sepsis that went to your body is deadly and you survived it. And so you're going to be okay. It's just going to take a while.'"
As for how Vicki's doing today?
"My energy level is super low," she shared. "Michael's been incredible because he's been giving me my medicines, because I can't remember when I'm taking them. I'm sleeping enough—probably too much, but I can't get the energy to walk right now. It is very similar, it mimics like a stroke. And i just had a blank three days. It's crazy, it's like somebody just swooped them off a calendar."
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