Lena Dunham is in recovery after being rushed to the hospital with a complication from her endometriosis surgery in April.
The Girls writer and star left for the hospital after walking the red carpet at the Met Gala on Monday, and shared an update on her health Thursday morning.
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“Thank you for all the love & concern that’s been pouring in since Tuesday,” Dunham writes on Instagram, captioning a selfie from her hospital bed that shows her custom Elizabeth Kennedy Met Gala dress heaped in the corner. “Although I’m much healthier than I was a year ago, complications arose from my most recent endometriosis surgery.”
She had said April that she underwent a fifth surgery that left her endometriosis-free.
“My surgery went off without a hitch,” she wrote in Lenny Letter. “When I emerged, cotton-mouthed, Randy told me something I hadn’t expected to hear, maybe ever: there was no endometriosis left. Between my surgeries and hormonal intervention, I was disease-free. That doesn’t mean it can never return, but for now, once my sutures have been removed and my bruises have changed from blue to yellow to green to gone, I will be healthy.”
Dunham says on Instagram that she’s proud that she was able to attend the Met Gala — even if it was only for a few minutes — while dealing with the pain.
“I also want to remind all the women suffering from chronic illness that we aren’t weak — quite the opposite, actually,” she says. “We do our jobs with skill even when we’re struggling. We care families even when we can hardly care for ourselves. We serve major face on a red carpet when we feel like lying face down would be more appropriate.”
“I’ll always be proud of those Met Gala pics — not just because I felt beautiful, surrounded by art and magic, hugging my best friend tightly, but because they’re evidence that women contain steely multitudes.”

Dunham added that she’s grateful to have access to healthcare, at a time when many Americans are at risk of losing it.
“When the healthcare of so many American women, especially our trans sisters, is at-risk — or already nonexistent — I am lucky to be in the position to seek help when I’m in pain,” she says. “To those in that privileged spot — never forget that we are blessed and can pay it forward by supporting Planned Parenthood and LGBTQ clinics like Callen-Lorde.”
And she praised Diana Falzone, the Fox News reporter who filed a lawsuit Monday alleging that the network cut her airtime after writing about her endometriosis and infertility.
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“Just that morning @dianafalzone sued Fox after they took her off air for disclosing her endometriosis,” Dunham says. “But they’re the ones who lost when they fired her, because everyone who’s anyone knows that if you can battle chronic illness there’s nothing you can’t take on.”
This article originally appeared on PEOPLE
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