Al Roker offers health update on 'Today': 'It's been a tough slog'

"Today" co-anchor and weather forecaster Al Roker, who has been in and out of lengthy hospital stays over the last several weeks due a blood clot, greeted his morning-show colleagues on air Monday after being discharged on Thursday.

"It's good to be home, it's good to see your faces. Wow," said the 68-year-old fixture of the NBC show, speaking remotely from his kitchen. He thanked his "terrific" co-anchors for "coming by the hospital. Hoda [Kotb] was actually, I think, named an honorary doctor," he joked. "She would just literally show up" so quickly and unexpectedly that "she did a 'Ho-dini,' she'd just be there," he said, referencing the legendary illusionist and escape artist Harry Houdini.

"Listen," he told them, joviality aside, "it’s been a tough slog. I’m not going to deny this. It’s been the hardest one yet, and you know I’ve had my share of surgeries. But it gives you a profound sense of gratitude for this outpouring of prayers and thanks. I’m a very fortunate person."

The Queens-born Roker revealed on Nov. 18 he had been hospitalized for several days, writing on social media of "a blood clot in my leg which sent some clots into my lungs." After undergoing surgery and treatment, he was discharged on Thanksgiving but was soon readmitted. The hospitalizations caused him to miss his annual hosting of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Nov. 30 Rockefeller Center tree-lighting ceremony.

Roker told his colleagues Monday, "You lose a certain amount of muscle mass for every week you’re in the hospital, and I was in the hospital for four weeks. … But I’m doing physical therapy every day, occupational therapy. I’ve got to just get my strength back." He said a knee-replacement surgery he had wanted to have in January is being pushed back.

"So I've got a number of issues," he said. "But I feel good, I feel strong. and every day I feel a little bit better." At home with his wife, ABC News reporter Deborah Roberts, and their children and his brother and sister-in-law, "I made dinner last night."

Saying "this is going to be a little bit of a slog," Roker acknowledged "there are a lot of people who have to deal with a lot more with a lot fewer resources" in terms of access to affordable medical care. He thanked his doctors and the nurses and staff at the hospital, saying, "I’m very fortunate and very blessed to be able to have the resources I’ve had. … I've had a lot of things and people to be thankful for."

Roker additionally revealed on social media Saturday that his sister Patricia died after a stroke. "Our hearts are broken," he wrote, saying she "leaves a devoted husband, Nigel, her twins Kaizon and Kailene, sons, Langston and Adam and a beautiful grandson, Easton."