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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
Lifestyle
Kate Ng

Selling Sunset’s Amanza Smith details gruelling surgery after spine ‘deteriorated’

Instagram/Amanza Smith

Amanza Smith has given fans an update on her health having undergone surgery to treat an infection that spread from her bloodstream to her spine.

The Selling Sunset star, 46, shared a video of herself in her hospital bed and declared that spine surgery “sucks”.

Smith underwent the procedure on Friday (16 June) after the infection, called osteomyelitis, ravaged part of her spine and caused it to “completely deteriorate”.

In an update posted after the first part of the surgery, she wrote on Instagram: “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.”

Today (Thursday 22 June), Smith admitted that she is “ready to go home” and was “over” being in hospital.

She showed followers her wrist bands, one of which carried the warning that she is a “fall risk” and the other that she is a “seizure risk”.

“Seizure-chella,” she joked, referring to the Coachella music festival that took place in April in California.

The real estate agent showed followers that she was propped up on a number of pillows to keep her comfortable in bed.

“Spine surgery sucks mega…,” she began, before stopping because her “kids might see this”.

“I’m done,” Smith added. “I’m ready to go home. I’m ready to heal from my house. I’m over it.”

Amanza Smith attends the Guilty Pleasures by Plastic Jesus Opening Night Event at The LA Art Box on November 17, 2022
— (Getty Images for JOPR)

Smith was first diagnosed with osteomyelitis earlier this month after getting an MRI and CT scan, which she was referred for after feeling like there was “something wrong” with her lower back.

“I laid in pain in my house for several days. I cried. I took Tylenol. I went to urgent care,” she revealed. “I didn’t know what it was but after over a month of excruciating pain I finally started to get some answers.”

She was then admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angeles and was put on a round of antibiotics. However, it transpired that she needed to have surgery to remove the infection from her spine.

In one of her earlier updates, Smith praised her doctors and said that “the good thing about” her ordeal is her medical team, which she said is “right on top of everything to get the answers that we need to get me to where I need to be, which is better”.

Smith shares two children, daughter Noah and son Braker, with her ex-husband, former NFL player Ralph Brown. In 2021, she was granted sole legal custody of the children.

She has not seen or spoken to Brown since 2019 and it is understood she cannot locate him. They married in 2010 but separated two years later.

Smith joined Netflix’s hit reality show Selling Sunset in the second series in 2019. The show follows the drama surrounding employees at The Oppenheim Group, an elite real estate brokers selling luxury properties in Los Angeles.

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