Keltie Knight. Dia Dipasupil/WireImage
Keltie Knight revealed she has been suffering from a “stubborn” type of blood disorder — which has now forced her to undergo a hysterectomy.
“I’ve been silently suffering for most of the last decade, and, like most women, I made up my mind that the debilitating health issues I have been dealing with daily were somehow all my fault,” Knight, 42, wrote in an E! News article published on Monday, March 18, while also sharing that she has a blood disorder called microcytic anemia. (According to the Cleveland Clinic, microcytic anemia happens when a person’s red blood cells are smaller than usual, which leads to the body not being able to carry as much oxygen.)
The E! News correspondent went on to say that she has tried several things to improve her condition, including acupuncture, iron infusions and hormone replacement, but none of these methods have proved successful.
“The last resort is removing my uterus so that I can keep as much of my precious healthy, oxygen rich blood as possible,” Knight explained.
Knight noted that some of her symptoms include feeling dizzy all the time, having blurry vision, feeling fatigued and randomly fainting.
“To be honest, most days I can barely function, and I’ve gotten really good at hiding how I feel,” she wrote, adding that a lot of her “quirky personality characterizations” are traits she made up to cover her symptoms.
Keltie shared she “can’t wait” to start living a normal life again, whether that means going dancing or to a concert with her husband, Chris Knight.
“I can’t wait to not have to memorize all the lines on a teleprompter and pretend I don’t have super blurry vision that makes reading anything nearly impossible,” she said. “I can’t wait to not randomly faint, to not need to lie down for a nap between getting dressed for E! News and walking to set to host the show.”
After detailing the disease she has been living with, Keltie encouraged women to stop “feeling like [they] need to pretend everything is OK when it’s not.”
“Throughout my career, I felt like I was such a fluke, that all my dreams were coming true not because I deserved them, but because I had tricked everyone into hiring me,” Keltie continued. “I believed that working hard meant feeling like garbage all the time. … I felt replaceable, so I never really advocated for myself because I knew if I was out sick, they would find someone younger, sparklier and healthier.”
Keltie concluded her post by thanking her team of doctors who kept fighting for her “until [they] had real answers” while also acknowledging her team at E! News for being so supportive.
“Thank you in advance for all your support and I hope going public with this will inspire all women to get to the very bottom of why you don’t feel write,” she explained. “It’s not because you ate that Snickers, I promise.”
This isn’t the first time Keltie has been so open about her health. In May 2018, Keltie revealed that she was diagnosed with the thyroid condition Hashimoto’s disease, which led to her becoming very depressed and suicidal.
“I just thought, ‘I need a break. I need to get off this treadmill of feeling so awful,’” Keltie shared with Us Weekly at the time, adding that she felt “embarrassed to say anything” about her condition at first. “I sort of was in denial. [I felt] like it was my fault, like somehow being a woman who was ambitious was ruining my body.”
After opening up to her husband, finding the right medicine and going to therapy, Keltie started feeling like herself again and noted that she was in a “better place than [she’s] ever been.”
