On Tuesday morning Dayna Devon’s Entertainment Report on the KTLA 5 Morning News was interrupted by a special guest, longtime weather anchor Mark Kriski.
Slow music overtook the studio and the double doors opened as Mark strolled through with the screen behind him reading “Coming back… wiser… than ever.”
Of course in true Kriski fashion, he brought jokes.
“I’ve been watching this show. Henry (DiCarlo) is a handsome man. Jessica (Holmes), you haven’t aged a bit and Frank (Buckley) is steady as a rock and the great thing, Dayna Devon, that refinement school finally paid off. You are so graceful, they should name a ballet after you ” he quipped.
“Is this a roast!?” laughed Jessica.
Mark told the crew that he felt “great,” but he was nervous making his surprise appearance.
“Thirty-three years I’ve been doing this and all of a sudden I’m nervous!”
Mark’s highly anticipated return to the Morning Show comes after he suffered a mild stroke in May.
“On Memorial Day weekend I had a stroke. Everything was pretty well and fine, but all of the sudden at one o’clock in the morning I had this massive, massive headache. I don’t get headaches, I don’t get migraines. It was from front to back,” he explained. “I stood up to go to the bathroom to get aspirin or something, I went down like a ton of bricks. I stood up holding the bed and I couldn’t stand, I was falling to the right.”
From there he told his wife Jennifer Gould that he believed he was having a stroke.
“I knew it, I knew there was something majorly wrong,” he continued.
Jennifer rushed him to Northridge Hospital where he underwent an MRI. Fortunately, the medical facility is a stroke center. Within five minutes of the MRI, medical personnel immediately reacted calling out for a Code Red over the intercom.
Mark said it felt surreal as he’d only heard those words from watching medical shows on television.
After receiving treatment, Mark underwent physical therapy, which he credits to his recovery.
“The main thing is, and I even spoke to Dr. Jandial, you’ve got to exercise every single day,” he explained regardless if you’ve worked out hard the day before. “Every day: move, move, move.”
While PT has been tough, it’s gotten him up and moving, which was key to his recovery.
“They say with a stroke, it’s all within the first six months. Whatever you regain within the first six months, that’s pretty much it. You will get a little better, but the first three months that’s what Dr. Jandial told me. He said ‘Move and when it starts hurting move more.’”
Mark revealed that he had left the hospital with a walker, but he said he had “got rid of that thing so fast, in the end I started carrying the walker.”
He also credited his recovery to the wonderful medical staff.
“I want to thank all the staff at Northridge Hospital, the doctors, the nurses, the assistants, everybody!” he exclaimed. “Everybody was just absolutely fantastic!”
From this experience, he also learned a few things and offered this advice: get a blood pressure cuff.
“You get it from a couple of bucks from Amazon,” he recommended.
From there Mark checks his blood pressure every day.
“Get that blood pressure cuff and the oldest trick in the book works: eating right and exercising.”
He also provided some welcomed news to his KTLA family and viewers, he’s coming back!
He’ll return to deliver the weather forecasts beginning at 7 a.m. on Wednesday.
“I’m going to start from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.,” he revealed. “Slow rollout! That’s an old inside joke.”
Our KTLA family and viewers can’t wait!
On Tuesday morning Dayna Devon’s Entertainment Report on the KTLA 5 Morning News was interrupted by a special guest, longtime weather anchor Mark Kriski. Slow music overtook the studio and the double doors opened as Mark strolled through with the screen behind him reading “Coming back… wiser… than ever.” Of course in true Kriski fashion, […]
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