Derek Hough and Hayley Erbert share sweet photo from dance studio: 'Beginning to paint again'

By Good Morning America

Derek Hough and Hayley Erbert are "beginning to paint again."

In a joint Instagram photo that they shared on Wednesday, Hough and Erbert appear to have returned to the dance studio more than three months after Erbert's health scare.

"Stepping onto this blank canvas together," they added in the caption of the photo, which shows them leaning on each other as they stand in the middle of an empty dance studio.

In December 2023, Hough shared with his followers on Instagram that Erbert underwent an emergency craniectomy. He shared a few weeks later that she underwent a cranioplasty.

According to the National Library of Medicine, a cranioplasty "is the surgical intervention to repair cranial defects in both cosmetic and functional ways." It is performed "mostly after traumatic injuries."

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A post shared by Derek Hough (@derekhough)

"It's something you never imagined," he told "Good Morning America" in an interview in February. "It's something you never imagine. I think anybody could understand that feeling of just disbelief or how it feels unfathomable."

"I thought she was strong," Hough added about his wife. "But I had no idea how strong she was."

Erbert and Hough also took to Instagram last month to share an update in a video.

"I'm doing so much better," Erbert said at the time.

"I'm so grateful," she added. "There was a moment in the hospital when I had just woken up from my surgery and Derek's at the bottom of my bed. And he was like, 'There's so many people thinking about you. There's so many people sending love to you."