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Today host Savannah Guthrie is making a steady recovery from vocal surgery, with plans to return to the NBC show next week.
The 54-year-old TV host revealed on December 19 that she needed surgery on her vocal cords to fix nodules and a polyp. At the time, she said she’d be absent from Today for a few weeks and had to stay completely silent during the recovery process.
However, she’s going back to work soon, which she announced during a virtual appearance on Today Tuesday. During the segment, she also debuted her new voice, which she previously described as “very scratchy” before her vocal surgery.
“You know what, I think it’d be easier for me to just talk!” she said, after initially using her whiteboard to write “love you” to her co-workers.
However, Guthrie said she can only talk for a certain amount of time each day as she continues her recovery.
Savannah Guthrie is returning to Today on Monday, January 26 (Today)
“I am still on vocal rest, but I’m allowed to talk for five to 10 minutes every hour,” she explained. “This is my new voice or my old voice, but my new voice.”
While TV host Al Roker told her her voice “sounded the same,” broadcaster Craig Melvin disagreed and said it sounded “markedly better.”
“I think the good news is that it worked!” Guthrie said about the surgery fixing her scratchy voice. “It’s kind of slow recovery. You’re allowed to talk, and if you talk too much, which is a real risk for me, you start to feel it, so you just have to take it easy.”
She then shared that she’ll officially be back on Today, as the usual daytime host, in less than a week.
“I’m gonna come back to the show, I think, next Monday, but Friday I’m going to come, and we’re gonna do a little story about just what this whole thing has been like and the surgery,” she said.
When announcing her planned absence from the show in December, Guthrie referenced a clip from The Brady Bunch of Peter Brady’s voice cracking while he sang.
“Some of you have noticed that my voice has been very scratchy and started to crack a little bit like Peter Brady, who was going through a change,” she said on Today.
“Well, I have found out what it is. I have vocal nodules, and now I also have a polyp. It’s not a big, big deal, but I am going to have a surgery real early in the new year and be off for a couple of weeks,” Guthrie added. “So it’s my last day for a little while. So I just want to let everyone know, and if you’ve been wondering, do I have the world’s longest head cold? No, I don’t.”
At the time, she also said that she was looking forward to fixing her scratchy voice. “I’m really excited about it,” she explained. “This has been going on for years, honestly.”
Guthrie shared a health update days later on Instagram, including a photo of herself with a dry-erase board that read: “All good! Thanks for prayers and love!”