Conchata Ferrell, who played quick-witted housekeeper Berta on the CBS hit Two and a Half Men for the comedy's entire 12-season run, has been dealing with several health issues since late last year, and, unfortunately, things have recently gotten worse for the 77-year-old actress. Ferrell has now been admitted to a long-term care facility, and is in a semi-conscious state.
Arnie Anderson, Conchata Ferrell's husband, spoke with TMZ about her condition, and said that her most recent health issue began in May after she started to feel sick, and ended up admitted to the hospital. That illness was related to an infection that Ferrell battled from December of last year through this January, and eventually landed her in the ICU. Anderson said that after only being admitted to the ICU for a couple of days, though, that things quickly got worse for Ferrell when she went into cardiac arrest. Doctors were able to stabilize her after about 10 minutes, but Ferrell was then in the ICU for four weeks.
Now, Ferrell is in a special treatment center which Anderson said is a respiratory unit, and she's both on a respirator and receiving dialysis treatments. Ferrell's semi-conscious state means that she has some awareness of her surroundings, but is currently unable to talk or otherwise communicate with those around her.
It was early last December when Conchata Ferrell (who's recently been seen in Lifetime's A Very Nutty Christmas, as well as the Netflix comedies The Ranch and Grace and Frankie) was vacationing at her home in Charleston, West Virginia and began feeling weak. That illness turned out to be a kidney infection which had spread and then contaminated her blood. Ferrell was then in the ICU for a couple of weeks, but was released into transitional care in January of this year.
She was then able to spend her time recovering at her vacation home for the rest of the month, where she went through physical therapy several times a day, as she was bedridden for a time and wasn't able to walk. By the middle of February, though, she was ambulatory once again, and had returned to Los Angeles.
At the time, the veteran television and film star (who got her on-screen start on the TV show Maude in 1974 and has been nominated for three Emmy Awards) reported that she wasn't sure how she got the kidney infection, seeing as how she rarely got sick at all, but noted that she was eager to get back to acting after doing a bit more recovering, so it's very sad to hear that Conchata Ferrell's return to work won't be coming along as soon as she'd hoped. To make matters worse, her husband says he can't visit her right now, due to worries about the pandemic, and says the family has a long wait ahead:
It's going to be a while before there's any recovery. It's all neurological. There's nothing we can do to speed it up the process [sic]. We are hoping for the best.
Our thoughts are certainly with Conchata Ferrell and her family at this time, and we hope she's able to make a full recovery before too long.
