Grown-ish actress talks about recovering from the surgery in a new interview

Francia Raisa has opened up about the kidney transplant that helped save Selena Gomez‘s life.

The Grown-ish actress sat down with Harry Connick Jr. for an interview that will air this upcoming Monday, February 19 on Harry and talked about giving her BFF her kidney.

“Well, so our surgery was in June, our fans didn’t find out about it until September,” Francia told Harry (via Just Jared). “We wanted that privacy. It was a big surgery. 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.”

Francia continued, “She felt bad. 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.”

Selena and Francia revealed the transplant news in September, sharing a picture from the hospital on Instagram.

“So I found out I needed to get a kidney transplant due to my Lupus and was recovering. It was what I needed to do for my overall health,” Selena wrote to her fans. “There aren’t words to describe how I can possibly thank my beautiful friend Francia Raisa. She gave me the ultimate gift and sacrifice by donating her kidney to me. I am incredibly blessed.”

Talking about the recovery process on Harry, Francia shared, “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.”

She went on to discuss the surgery and her post-surgery scars.

“I basically have four scars,” she told the host. “It was laparoscopic, 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.”

She continued, “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. 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.”

Source: eonline.com