"Before I went into surgery, they made me sign something that said, 'We don't know until we get in there and see this leg, and it could come out that you don't have it anymore,'" Cuoco said. "That wasn't the case, obviously, but I had to sign something that said, 'OK, you can.'"
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She continued: "Everything ended up fine, and I was up and working a week later, but the doctors acted like I was never going to walk again. It's still too much for me to go into, and it sounded way worse than it was. And of course, it was spiraling and everyone was freaking out, which I get. It scared people."
"They were talking about amputating her leg, which was devastating to hear," Galecki said in the book excerpt. "But I think it scared people in a good way, myself included. The first day I saw you in that state, I just shed tears in my garage."
"Big Bang Theory" creator Chuck Lorre also said in the excerpt that he thought the show might have ended if Cuoco's leg was amputated.
"That was the darkest, most frightening time in all twelve years [of the show]," Lorre said. "Kaley could have lost her leg. It was a series of miracles that allowed us to get through that and for her to come out the other end of that healthy."
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He continued: "It was an absolutely miraculous intervention that I ran into Dr. Steve. Every time I see him, I say, 'Thank you! You saved Kaley! On a lesser level, you saved The Big Bang Theory!'"
"The Big Bang Theory: The Definitive, Inside Story of the Epic Hit Series" is available on November 3.
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