00:00 I said to them, "Yeah, you know, this was so severe.
00:03 I've been told that if I would have waited, like,
00:06 a week or two more, I could be dead.
00:07 Is that true?"
00:08 I'm asking the doctor, and he was like,
00:10 "Amanza, no, like, one or two more days at home,
00:12 and you could have been dead."
00:13 So that was like, "Whoa."
00:16 ♪♪
00:18 Wake up call.
00:20 If you have pain, go to the hospital.
00:22 Don't wait.
00:23 ♪♪
00:27 This is the first time that I've talked about
00:29 all of -- I mean, I've told friends, you know, obviously.
00:33 But, like, from the beginning of all of these symptoms
00:39 to, you know, where we are now, like, I haven't --
00:43 It's making me emotional because I just haven't, like --
00:46 I think it's all -- I don't -- I mean, I don't want to keep --
00:50 I don't want to be super dramatic, but, you know,
00:52 I almost died.
00:55 I was two days away from death, and that doesn't --
00:59 Like, that doesn't even seem like that could be a real thing.
01:02 We finished filming season seven, actually,
01:06 and about a month later, I was totally fine.
01:09 And then one morning, I woke up,
01:11 and I couldn't step on my foot out of bed.
01:14 My back hurt so bad, I couldn't stand up.
01:16 And I was like, "Okay, I'm old."
01:19 My back went out. That's one of those things.
01:21 Like, you know, you hear people -- Their backs go out.
01:23 Like, that's a common phraser.
01:25 You hear that all the time.
01:27 And it lasted about six days.
01:29 It was really bad like that.
01:30 I was having my daughter help me, like,
01:32 limping to the bathroom.
01:33 I went to the emergency room at one point,
01:35 and they did a scan and said that I was having a severe --
01:39 a back spasm, and then I had some lower back arthritis.
01:43 And so they sent me home with, you know,
01:45 some, like, muscle relaxers, steroids, and strong Advil.
01:50 And it got better for about a week and not totally gone,
01:55 but it was getting -- It felt better.
01:56 I could walk, but it was still there.
01:59 And then it came back, and it was way worse.
02:01 I couldn't sit up on my couch.
02:03 I couldn't -- It felt like my back was gone at the bottom.
02:07 Like, it literally -- I couldn't hold myself up.
02:11 It got to the point that I was literally
02:14 biting the pillow on the couch one day,
02:17 like, screaming, because I've never felt pain like that.
02:21 So I had a scan, and they saw a mass.
02:25 They thought at first it was a tumor,
02:26 so he said, "You need to go, you know, to Cedars-Sinai
02:29 and get, like, a full scan,
02:31 and we can check out what this is."
02:34 So I went to the emergency room at Cedars,
02:36 thinking I had a tumor maybe on my spine.
02:40 And they admitted me. This was June 2nd.
02:42 They admitted me, and they started running blood tests,
02:45 and they found that I had bacteria in my blood,
02:48 and it had turned into osteomyelitis.
02:51 And I'd -- I've never heard any of these terms
02:53 until this experience.
02:55 And osteomyelitis was the infection
02:58 that was attacking my spine,
02:59 and so it was deteriorating the bones of my spine.
03:03 So that's how it all began.
03:08 The doctor that did my surgery, Dr. Kim, said in 11 years,
03:11 he had only seen -- I was the second patient
03:14 that had the osteomyelitis in that location.
03:17 It was a really bizarre location, he said, on my spine.
03:21 I don't know all the numbers -- L1, L2, L3.
03:23 And these are -- I had a total anatomy lesson
03:26 for 31 days in the hospital, and I've forgotten some of it.
03:29 But there was a portion on my lower spine
03:32 that was -- you know, looked pretty severe.
03:35 So they decided to do one surgery
03:37 to just sort of excavate and clear it out,
03:40 just basically, like, kind of, you know,
03:41 wash out the infection to get it away from the bones.
03:45 And so that was just a tiny little surgery,
03:47 but it was -- I mean, it was major,
03:48 but it was, like, this little scar.
03:50 And then they had --
03:52 So when they admitted me in the hospital,
03:54 they start you on intravenous antibiotics immediately,
03:58 because it's so dangerous to have this blood disease,
04:01 and it's a sticky disease.
04:03 It can stick to your heart. It can kill you.
04:05 You can die. So it's really serious.
04:08 So the first spine surgery was to clear it out,
04:10 and they were hoping that the antibiotics
04:12 would get rid of the other location,
04:15 because the other location was a spot
04:17 on the front of my spine a bit higher,
04:19 and it was too dangerous to operate
04:21 after they, you know, went through the scans.
04:23 It was too dangerous to operate, because they would have to go --
04:27 It was really close to my aorta and my kidney,
04:30 so they couldn't -- They would have to go around,
04:32 and it was on the front of my spine.
04:34 So we decided to just see if the antibiotics would treat it,
04:37 but within two weeks, it hadn't gotten better.
04:40 It had actually gotten worse.
04:42 And about three-quarters of my vertebrae, like --
04:45 Like, if this is my vertebrae,
04:46 when I first got to the hospital,
04:47 about this much was deteriorated.
04:50 You could see on the scan.
04:51 And after two weeks, it was --
04:53 There was only, like, this much of the vertebrae left.
04:56 So they went in, and they replaced it
05:00 with a titanium cage.
05:02 So I am Iron Woman. [ Laughs ]
05:05 And rods and screws.
05:07 So now I have that.
05:09 That incision was like this.
05:10 And that was the major surgery. It was six hours.
05:14 And then we just continue with the antibiotics
05:16 and hope that, you know, it doesn't come --
05:19 It's not something that would typically come back,
05:23 but they want to make sure that the infection
05:26 doesn't now stick to the metal, taking its bone.
05:30 So I am on antibiotics for the rest of the year.
05:34 (laughing)
05:36 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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