Derek Hough’s wife Hayley Erbert makes an emotional return to the stage
By Lisa Respers France, CNN
(CNN) — Hayley Erbert is back dancing after brain surgery.
The professional dancer recently joined her husband, “Dancing With the Stars” champion and judge Derek Hough on the opening night of their “Symphony of Dance” tour in Melbourne, Florida.
Video shared on social media shows Erbert, sporting a pixie hair cut, getting visibly emotional on stage as the audience enthusiastically cheers her.
Erbert underwent emergency surgery in December after she fell ill.
“At the end of last night’s tout performance in Washington, D.C., my wife Hayley became disoriented and was taken to the hospital,” Hough wrote in a note he shared on Instagram at the time. “She was diagnosed with a cranial hematoma from a burst blood vessel and required an emergency craniectomy. She is in stable condition.”
Soon after, he posted a photo of himself at his wife’s bedside in the hospital and wrote, “With immense relief, gratitude and overwhelming joy I’d like to share that Hayley’s cranioplasty surgery has been successfully completed as planned.”
“This surgery marks a significant milestone in my wife’s recovery journey, and your support has played a crucial role in getting us here,” he wrote. “We are filled with hope and optimism for the future, knowing she is on the path to a full recovery, surrounded by such a loving community.”
According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, a cranioplasty “is the surgical repair of a bone defect in the skull resulting from a previous operation or injury.”
Erbert recently shared video on her Instagram account of what appeared to be rehearsals with her husband and others in their production.
“What a blessing (and surprise) it is to be able to be back on stage dancing with my love after such a crazy past four months,” she wrote. “My healing journey has been nothing short of extraordinary and being able to dance again is igniting my soul in all the ways; speeding up my recovery even more.
Her post received quite a few supportive comments, including one from Jennifer Lopez who wrote, “Beautiful.”
Erbert and Hough married last August.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
