Ciara Kelly has said she now 'sees the light at the end of the tunnel' following recent hip surgery.

The Newstalk Breakfast host underwent the procedure a fortnight ago after being in discomfort for an extended period of time.

Ciara said she feels she has now turned a corner.

"I'm feeling ridiculously well and ridiculously happy to be back," she said.

"It is a bit ropey after you have it first but I feel very much in the last couple of days that I have turned a corner.

"I'm on crutches and all that kind of stuff, but I feel really good".

'I was saying no to things'

Ciara said she made the decision to undergo the surgery after she felt her life had gotten smaller.

"I was in significant pain but I was in denial for a very long time because I am a walker and I am an independent type," she said.

"I just kept thinking, 'Oh this'll go away'; it doesn't go away, it's a progressive thing.

"In my head it was all going to go away until a kind of realisation dawned on me eight months ago that my life had gotten smaller.

"My life was not the life I wanted to lead anymore; I was saying no to things.

"I was limited, I was unable to attend things I wanted to do - I was opting out quietly of things that I would have wanted to have done."

Shane Coleman welcomes Ciara Kelly (working remotely) back to Newstalk Breakfast. Image: Newstalk

Ciara said she was looking at other people living their lives.

"It just struck me; the line that popped into my head was I felt I was looking at my life through a window," she said.

"I was looking at other people living and I wasn't.

"When that happened it gave me a bit of a land mentally, and I went, 'OK, I have to do something' and off I trotted to an orthopedic surgeon.

"The good thing is is I now see the light at the end of the tunnel, and that's all you really need when things are crap; you need to see a way out and that's what I have," she added.

Main image: File photo of Ciara Kelly presenting Newstalk Breakfast