Selling Sunset’s Amanza Smith has revealed she was close to death before being diagnosed with a bone infection.
The Netflix star, 46, said she was told by doctors she was ‘one or two days away from dying’ before she was treated at Cedars-Sinia Medical Centre in LA.
Amanza was taken to the hospital by a friend after she collapsed one evening following an excruciating backache that lasted nearly a month.
After undergoing tests and an MRI scan, the interior designer was diagnosed with vertebral osteomyelitis.
According to the NHS, it is a painful bone condition that usually goes away if treated early with antibiotics but can cause serious long-term problems if not.
The National Organization for Rare Disorders lists it as a rare disease and states it affects around two to five people in every 10,000 in the United States.
‘I thought I had a backache, and I almost died. The doctors and my friend saved my life,’ Amanza told People.
Amanza had two surgeries to treat the osteomyelitis which included having part of her spine replaced after it deteriorated due to the infection. The second operation lasted six hours.
She previously said: ‘Part of my spine has completely deteriorated due to the infection and I’ll be getting a new vertebrae and a couple of screws and rods in my spine to replace what has been eaten away from the bacteria.’
Amanza returned home after her stay in hospital last month and will have six more months of antibiotics, as well as physical therapy.
She said: ‘There are so many things I can’t do because I can’t lift more than five pounds. Sometimes my purse is too heavy. You can’t speed up time, but I’m very anxious to be able to do the things that I love to do. I like to decorate. I like to rearrange. I want to be able to hang things, but I’m very limited right now.’
Amanza continued: ‘You know who your friends are when you become a burden. It’s like a rebirth. I will never take my mobility for granted again. When I can walk and jog again and do Pilates or ballet, I hope I stick to them because I plan on living to be 107.’
The former realtor previously opened up about her health issues in the most recent series of Selling Sunset.
The real estate agent revealed that she needed to ‘get a biopsy’, after ‘questionable’ things that were possibly cancerous showed up during a scan.
Taking to Instagram, the mom-of-two opened up about the scenes, explaining that she had received the results back from her doctors.
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‘Thank you to everyone for your concerns and well wishes towards my health,’ she began the lengthy caption. ‘I am happy to tell you that I am in fact, not only cancer-free.’
Selling Sunset is available to stream on Netflix.
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