Francia Raisa opened up about her long and painful recovery after donating her kidney to Selena Gomez last year.
The Grown-ish star, 29, spoke to Harry Connick Jr., about the June 2017 procedure in an interview set to air on Harry on Monday, February 19.
“It’s harder as the donor because we are losing something our body didn’t need to lose, so trying to recover from that, and she’s gaining something her body needed. So she’s up and at it immediately and I had a hard time,” the Secret Life of the American Teenager alum confided, before revealing she “basically” has four scars from the laparoscopic procedure.
Raisa also expressed her admiration for mothers who undergo c-sections: “Those mothers out there who had C-sections, I feel you. I don’t know how you take care of a child afterwards. It is crazy! I couldn’t get up without having someone help me.”
“That was very humbling. I couldn’t take a shower by myself, I had to have someone help me because I couldn’t move. I’m a very, very active person, so the fact that my doctor said I couldn’t move for two months. Two months, I couldn’t do anything active. All I could do was walk,” she continued. “That was very hard for me and I have a dog and every day the thing I look forward to is drinking my coffee and walking and I couldn’t do that. It was really really hard.”
As previously reported, Gomez, 25, underwent a kidney transplant last year due to complications with lupus, the autoimmune disease she was diagnosed with in 2013. She revealed close friend Raisa donated the organ in a touching Instagram post in September. “We wanted that privacy,” Raisa explained. “It was a big surgery. “
Despite the extended healing process, the actress says that donating her kidney brought her and the “Wolves” singer closer. “She felt bad about even having me do that because we are just friends, I am not her family or anything. Well, I am now. She has my blood,” she told Connick, before adding, “We just wanted our families around and it was cool because now I have a big family. I lost my grandparents when I was younger … Her grandparents are my grandparents now and so I have this extension of a family and it’s been really amazing.”
