Brooke Shields feels “lucky to be alive” after her harrowing leg injury and subsequent staph infection.
Brooke Shields
The 55-year-old actress broke her right femur after she fell off a balance board whilst at a gym in New York in January, and after undergoing two surgeries to insert metal rods and plates into her leg, she developed a very serious staph infection which required her to return to hospital for further emergency surgery.
And now, Brooke has said she feels lucky to still be here.
She said: "There's so many things that could've happened. I just feel so lucky to be alive."
Brooke stayed calm and strong throughout the process for the sake of her daughters – Rowan, 18, and Grier, 15 – and has said she wants to use her terrifying ordeal to teach them about the correct ways to respond to adversity.
She added to People magazine: "I had to stay calm for them. My kids actually asked me if I thought I was going to die.
“If I can turn it into anything positive, or I can teach my girls, yeah, stuff is going to happen in your life, and how you respond is going to define you, and adversity will reveal you. It won't make you as much as it will reveal you because you see who you are. You see what you're made up of.
“Especially women. I want them to know that they deserve to feel good about themselves and be healthier and happier and bigger, live a bigger life."
The ‘Pretty Baby’ star had to re-learn how to walk after her health ordeal, but said back in March she was determined to pull through.
She said: "For the first time in my entire life, I thought, 'I can't power through this.’ I can't even stand on my leg or go up a step. I need to relearn how to even walk. The feeling of helplessness is shocking.
“If anything, I'm a fighter.
“I'm the only one that's going to be able to get through this. My career has actually been like that as well. One door gets slammed in my face and I search for another. It's not unlike how I felt when I wrote about postpartum depression in 2005. This is my journey, and if it took me breaking the largest bone in my body, then recovery is something I want to share. We have to believe in ourselves and encourage one another. There's no other way to get through life, period."
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