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Khloe Kardashian: Doctors Told Me Lamar Odom Had Four Hours to Live

Lamar Odom may be on the road to recovery now, but Khloe Kardashian says he came closer to death than anyone knew. In an interview on the Today show on Thursday, Nov. 19, the Strong Looks Better Naked author revealed that Odom’s initial prognosis was bleak.

“They told me that he had four hours,” Kardashian, 31, told Today‘s Natalie Morales. “It’s a horrible call to get. Getting to the hospital and knowing he’s in a coma and having to run these tests or make medical decisions — it’s terrifying.”

The Keeping Up With the Kardashians star separated from Odom in 2013, but because their divorce had not yet been made official by a judge at the time of the former basketball pro’s hospitalization, she was still listed as his health care proxy.

Lamar Odom and Khloe Kardashian
Lamar Odom and Khloe Kardashian in 2012

Related: PHOTOS: Khloe and Lamar, the way they were

“You have to make risk-and-reward decisions. Like, okay, well, there’s an 80 percent chance if we do this operation, he might pass away,” she explained to Morales. “But also, if we don’t do it, there’s a 90 percent chance he’ll pass away.”

Odom remained unconscious for 72 hours before coming to in a Las Vegas hospital on Oct. 16. “They kept saying, ‘He’s not out of the woods. You’re so optimistic. You’re so positive.’ They wanted to keep reminding me, ‘We’re nowhere in the clear.’ But I was like, ‘You guys told me he was going to die just a few days ago,'” Kardashian recalled in her Today interview.

The ex-Lakers star has since been moved to Cedars-Sinai in L.A., where he’s “learning how to walk again and learning . . . cognitive therapy and speech therapy,” she shared. “They think, like, within a year and a half to two years that, mentally, he might be fully recovered. But they don’t know.”

Related: PHOTOS: Khloe's body evolution

In the meantime, Kardashian is sticking by him. She recently requested that a judge dismiss their divorce case, though she insists they’re not reconciling romantically. (She’s currently dating basketball player James Harden.)

“I was expediting the divorce prior. And I’m still separated with him, but I’m just not expediting [the papers] anymore. There was no reason for it,” she explained on Thursday, noting that she is also still his medical adviser. “He had no one else to make these decisions for him.”

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