Ty Pennington reflects on scary medical emergency: ‘If you almost die, you get so much attention’

nypost.com:

Ty Pennington is on the mend and feeling “great” after being rushed to the hospital to undergo emergency surgery in July 2023. “I’m great,” Pennington, 59, told “Entertainment Tonight” on Monday, while promoting his new HGTV show “Rock the Block.” “You know what’s great is if you almost die, you get so much attention.

It feels so nice to be that loved.”“I’m planning another one… No, I’m kidding,” the reality show host joked. The “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” alum revealed that prior to seeking medical help, he was suffering from a severe sore throat for nearly a month.

Finally, just days after attending the premiere of the “Barbie” movie, Pennington drove to the hospital around 4:00 a.m. intent on getting a steroid to relieve some of the pain. “I had this abscess in my throat and I woke up I couldn’t breathe,” he recalled to the outlet. “I drove down the mountain to the hospital, and I’m just like, ‘Hey, can you give me a steroid to help shrink the swelling?’ And [the doctor] goes, ‘What if it’s more than that?

What if you close up and can’t breathe?'” “I’m like, ‘Oh my God.’ He’s like, ‘I think we need to fly you to Denver.’ And I wake up and I have a tube in my throat,” he continued. “Turns out, that sore throat I’ve had for the last month was actually an abscess which had grown so large it was closing off my airway,” Pennington later wrote in an Instagram post that featured him hooked up to several machines. “Next thing I know, I was intubated and flown to the ICU in Denver.