Al Roker has shoulder-replacement surgery

"Today's" Al Roker greeted fans Wednesday in an Instagram video from Manhattan's Hospital for Special Surgery, as he was being prepped for right-shoulder replacement surgery.

Masked and in a hospital gown, Queens-born Roker, who turns 66 on Aug. 20, said, "It's 7 o'clock. IV's in. 'Today' show has started. I'm not there. I'm ready to get my shoulder finally fixed. As I continue my quest," he added jokingly, "to replace every joint in my body." He followed this with a video of his chest being shaved for surgery, captioned, "I'll just leave [NBC meteorologist] Dylan Dreyer to shoulder the load of weather reporting this week. (See what I did there?!)" He is expected to be off the air for the remainder of this week.

Roker has had his left shoulder, left hip and both knees replaced over the years. "I've got an arthritic shoulder, and … it's gotten to the point where I can't even sleep at night," he explained on the morning show the day before. "It's not bad during the day, but at night it's an intense pain that literally wakes me up." Standard injections for the pain no longer work, he said, "so we had to go under the knife."