• Savannah Guthrie had to have one last “teeny tiny eye surgery” after her son’s toy damaged her retina in 2019.
  • The Today co-anchor lost sight in her right eye after the incident.
  • She has undergone several surgeries to repair her retina and her vision.

You may have noticed Savannah Guthrie’s absence from Tuesday morning’s installment of Today. As it turns out, the co-anchor took the day off to complete her long-winded run of eye surgeries after an incident with her son’s toy damaged her retina back in 2019.

On Wednesday morning, the reporter and future interim Jeopardy! host shared a black-and-white selfie to Instagram with a plastic patch taped over her eye. “One last teeny tiny eye surgery and I’m back in business!” she captioned the post.

In November 2019, after abruptly disappearing from Today for a few days, Guthrie took to Instagram to offer an explanation by posting a photo of her son, Charley, and his toy train. “This little cutie has super strength!” she wrote. “Last week, Charley threw this train at my eye and turns out it caused a large tear in my retina, which has caused me to lose sight temporarily in my right eye!”

instagramView full post on Instagram

At first, she was hopeful that laser treatments would keep her retina from detaching, but she ended up requiring a full retinal operation to reattach it. That took place in December 2019, and in January, she shared images of her fully-repaired, “smooth as butter” retina. At that point, she thought the journey was over—but it wasn’t.

Not only did she have to sit face-down for three weeks as part of recovery, but in July 2020, she shared on Today that she needed even more surgery. “Remember when my retina was detached because Charley threw the train at my eye?” Guthrie explained. “Well, guys it’s not over. So apparently after you have that retina reattachment surgery, it’s very common to get cataracts, so that happened to me. So I’m actually going to leave in 20 minutes and have cataract surgery.”

She continued, describing her vision impairments. “I have all kinds of things going on where it’s kind of distorted and then it’s got a wavy thing and now I have this cataract which is a big blurry spot,” she said. The 49-year-old didn’t detail what her latest surgery entailed, but it seemed to be a minor one at least.

Hopefully, there are only clear days ahead now!


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Headshot of Kayla Blanton
Kayla Blanton

Kayla Blanton is a freelance writer-editor who covers health, nutrition, and lifestyle topics for various publications including Prevention, Everyday Health, SELF, People, and more. She’s always open to conversations about fueling up with flavorful dishes, busting beauty standards, and finding new, gentle ways to care for our bodies. She earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Ohio University with specializations in women, gender, and sexuality studies and public health, and is a born-and-raised midwesterner living in Cincinnati, Ohio with her husband and two spoiled kitties.