"Today" host Sheinelle Jones has returned to the morning show after a six-week hiatus due to vocal cord surgery.
Sheinelle joined the show from home on Monday. "It feels very weird. What did I miss?" she joked to co-hosts Craig Melvin and Al Roker. "It's good to see you guys," she added.
After getting surgery in late February, Sheinelle was unable to speak for two weeks. She took another month off to fully recover.
The fan-favorite host first noticed a vocal issue four years ago and was diagnosed with a polyp, a common condition for people who use their voices often — it's especially common with singers. Over the years, she's done vocal therapy and other non-surgical treatments to deal with the issue, but things began getting worse over the last year, so she finally decided to get the hour-long surgical procedure to correct her vocal cords.
With the procedure in that past — and completed before the temporary halt to elective surgeries due to the coronavirus pandemic — the 41-year-old said she learned many valuable lessons from her vocal blackout.
"The gift of silence and being still," she said. "We're all so busy, very rarely do we give ourselves permission to sit still, and in that I found clarity, I found peace."
She added, "At first it was very difficult, I'm not gonna lie, ordering a chai tea on a memo board or trying to talk to the kids. But after I just embraced it, I kind of found a gift in that."
Sheinelle said she's also become a better listener due her vocal hiatus.
"Really, we can apply that to the situation that we're in right now," she said, referring to self-isolation. "You're home with your kids this morning or you're with your spouse probably more than you're used to. I noticed that when you can't speak, your ears perk up and you're hearing things that you've never heard before."