Hayley Erbert is “grateful to be alive.”
On Monday, the professional dancer shared a video on Instagram where she showed off her new buzz cut while emotionally recalling her hospitalization and recovery.
“It’s been quite the journey,” Erbert, 29, began while sitting alongside her husband, Derek Hough. “There’s been so much that has happened in two months. Lots of emotions.”
“To this day, I still have really good days and I have really bad days — emotionally and physically. But I’m doing so much better every single day. Truly there is so much progress every day, and I’m so grateful for that,” she continued.
Erbert then recalled how, after her first surgery in December 2023, she “genuinely felt” people’s support and love.
“I felt it in my heart. I felt it in my soul. So, thank you all so much,” she added while fighting back tears.
The 29-year-old also used the video to show off her new buzz cut and the scar that ran along the center of her head.
With a laugh, she explained that the new year had brought her “a new haircut, a new scar, a new sac of fluid on the side of my face, which is eventually supposed to go away” and “a new skull.”
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“I also got a new outlook on life,” she said before urging her fans to hold their loved ones close “’cause you never know what can happen.”
“I’m just grateful to be alive,” she added.
The “Dancing With the Stars” judge also talked about how their past year went from the “highest of highs to the lowest of lows.”
Erbert underwent emergency surgery just four months after the couple had tied the knot in August 2023.
“It’s been wild,” Hough, 38, said. “But I had to say, throughout this experience, this woman has been unbelievable. Her perseverance and her acceptance of the whole situation — her strength — has been remarkable to witness firsthand.
“She really is a miracle. It’s been miraculous, and it’s still a journey.”
On Dec. 7, Hough revealed that his new bride had to undergo emergency brain surgery after she “became disoriented.”
“She was diagnosed with a cranial hematoma from a burst blood vessel and required an emergency craniectomy,” the former “DWTS” pro announced on Instagram at the time.
Mayo Clinic describes the condition as a collection of blood underneath the skull or within the brain tissue that presses on the brain — often caused by a brain injury.
A few days later, Erbert went under the knife once again “to replace a large portion of her skull that was removed during her craniectomy,” Hough claimed in another update.
The dancer was able to return home by Christmas.
While the couple haven’t said the cause of Erbert’s condition, the health scare came a year after they were involved in a car accident.
In December 2022, Erbert showed off four eyebrow stitches on social media, writing that she was “a little banged up with a swollen face.”
She explained the “accident involved a steep hill, icy roads, a tree, and worst of all, the fear that we would slide off the mountain.”
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