Sherri Shepherd Shared a Health Update After Her Emergency Surgery This Weekend

Sherri Shepherd had to miss her spot guest-hosting The Wendy Williams Show on Monday after she had emergency surgery over the weekend. The 54-year-old came down with appendicitis, which was announced on the show by her replacement host, actor Michael Rapaport.

“So Sherri was supposed to host today. Unfortunately, she had appendicitis,” he told The Wendy Williams Show audience. “She’s fine. She is fine. She had to go to the hospital last night for some emergency surgery. She’s feeling fine today and she is rested. Get well soon, Sherri. Everybody loves you!”

Shepherd also confirmed the surgery on various social media accounts, where she posted a video clip from her hospital bed. “I just had an emergency appendectomy,” she says. “I don’t know where it came from, all of a sudden I was in a great deal of pain. I came in here to get some Metamucil and they said, ‘We gotta take out your appendix right away.’ So they removed my appendix.”

The star clearly had her sense of humor still, because she said that the drama of the day was that her wig went missing. “I just found my wig. We started off, I went into surgery with the wig, I came out bald-headed looking like Ludacris,” she said. “But we have found my wig.” She also thanked the staff at NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue for removing her appendix.

She’s expected to return as a guest host today and posted the photo of what would have been her hosting outfit that she decided to change up because her stomach is still swollen. “My stylist is frantically shopping for loose & flowing dresses right now!” she wrote.

The appendix is a finger-like tube attached to the large intestine—it’s a working part of the immune system in children, but stops doing this as an adult, Johns Hopkins Medicine explains. Appendicitis is the inflammation of the appendix caused by a blockage—this can happen due to various viruses or bacteria, trapped stool, or even tumors. Once it’s blocked, it becomes sore and swollen, and then blood flow to the appendix starts to diminish. The appendix can start to die, and holes can start to develop or it can even burst, all of which allows stool, mucus, and infection to get inside the abdomen, leading to a serious infection called peritonitis. Appendicitis is most common in people between the ages of 10 and 30 but can happen at any age, according got the Mayo Clinic.