TV icon Fiona Phillips shares heartbreaking update about Alzheimer's diagnosis
It's two months since TV presenter Fiona Phillips revealed in the Mirror she has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.
Each day she has continued to be injected with the drugs which are part of clinical trials searching for a cure. Each day she has tried to keep herself busy with walks in the park, coffees with friends or evenings out with husband Martin. But with each day too comes the anxiety… are the drugs making any difference? Is her condition slowing. Or, most worryingly, is it advancing?
About all this, Fiona, 62, is unsure. "I’m living with it by not letting it ruin things. I am just carrying on as much as I can. It’s when I talk about it that i can’t quite believe I’m talking about myself - I’m used to talking about it in relation to my mum and my dad having it.. my whole family have been slaughtered by it. I’m not sure if the drugs are working or not.. I don’t think anyone would know there is anything wrong with me.. but who knows? Would they?"
Fiona is talking publicly on World Alzheimer’s Day to keep a spotlight on the incredible scientific work which is ongoing into the disease which leads experts to think they are on the verge of a significant breakthrough in treatments. She also wants a greater awareness of the illness among the public and an understanding that however devastating a diagnosis can be, there can always be hope.
(Daily Mirror)But as we chat about our families and gossip about the news, it’s clear Fiona is worrying about some new aspects of her condition. "My eldest son Nat has taken great.. great…’ and then she pauses. ‘Oh, er, oh it’s awful but I keep having these moments where I think, ‘what’s the word?’ It doesn’t happen all the time.. just occasionally. And that’s just not me at all. I can normally talk until next Christmas. It is just weird when it happens because I’m thinking, ‘why has my mouth stopped and I’m still thinking about the sentence. It’s really weird."
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Doctors at University College Hospital in London are still regularly monitoring Fiona with cognitive tests to see if the trial drugs could be stabilising - or even reversing - the symptoms of disease. But what neither they nor Fiona knows is if she is even on the actual trial drug or a placebo which is necessary for a wide scale experiment. This has to remain top secret so data from the drug test volunteers can be properly compared.
(Getty Images Europe)
(Corbis via Getty Images)"Yes Martin is still stabbing me three times a day with these tiny needles with the drugs", Fiona laughs. "I think he’ll be disappointed if it comes to an end and he can’t do that any more." Fiona is full of praise for the role her husband Martin Frizell, 64, editor of ITVs This Morning has stepped up since her diagnosis last year.
"He’s been amazing", she says. "One of the things that has happened to me is that I’ve lost all interest in cooking and food. I did used to like that but now when Martin gets home from work he’ll cook. I do feel a bit guilty because it’s another pressure on him but I just can’t be bothered. There are some days I can’t be bothered to do anything.. It’s partly this malaise that I’m in I suppose."
For someone worried about losing words, Fiona’s vocabulary remains broader than most..… how many of us would use ‘malaise’ in a sentence? But as a consummate TV professional, who started her career in local journalism before working up to almost a decade on GMTV and a viewers’ favourite on Strictly Come Dancing, struggling for words is clearly a concern.
"I do get anxious about things which I never ever got anxious about in my life before. I can’t be specific about what sort of things cause it, but it’s just there.. I used to be hopping on trains and planes at a moment’s notice when I was working but I wouldn’t do that now. I haven’t been out much recently to be honest with you.. I just don’t seem to fancy it. Martin says I’m lethargic but what does he want me to do.. Go running round the park shouting, ‘Look I’ve got Alzheimer’s'."
Despite changes in attitudes towards people with the disease Fiona is still nervous about people knowing she has it. Sometimes she forgets she told her story back in July which was followed nationally. She tells me that she hasn’t confided in one friend about her condition.. just in case the pal told her husband and the secret should get out.
"I haven’t been going round telling everyone about it because I don’t want people pointing at me and saying, ‘Oh look, there’s that woman with the Alzheimers." And as a TV presenter she has years of practice of putting on a show for the public. She admits there are times when she pretends remembering things she’s unsure about.
"On TV, whatever is happening you just have to keep going with the smiley face.. if only you knew what went on behind that smiley face! Sometimes it’s the same now and I put on a show - and I think people who don’t know about it wouldn’t know there was anything wrong with me."
One incident recently was clearly distressing for Fiona though. "I was really annoyed the other day because there is a brilliant pair of women who do nails and beauty treatments and I was going to see them. They have moved their location and I went there I couldn’t for the life of me find their place - I thought it was number 17 and went to number 17 and they weren’t there.. and I was thinking ‘Oh f***, where are they? Is it me? Or is it them? That upset me more than anything.. It was really upsetting.. I felt like a little girl again and I was wishing I had my mum there to tell me where we were going."
It’s a devastating anecdote.. but as so often with Fiona she finishes it laughing, as if she cannot let herself or anyone be felled by her situation. As with so many Alzheimer’s sufferers, Fiona has been prescribed anti-depressants. "The doctors said I might need them and you do really because it is a horrible thing to come to terms with. I sleep well and I don’t wake up in the night worrying or anything like that. But in the morning some days I do wake up and think: ‘Oh God I’ve still got this bloody thing, it’s still there."
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At times Fiona is crystal clear about her diagnosis, treatment and what the future could hold. "I’ve seen how bad it can be at first hand when my mum and dad had this illness and ended up in care homes. it is horrible", she says. But at other points Fiona is more unclear about the future..
"I’m not really sure what the prognosis is and whether it stays with you and you have to live with it.. I think you have to live with it.. I’m not sure, I need to look into that." There are many, many bright points in Fiona’s life; lazing in the Italian sunshine on holiday, regular trips to Stamford Bridge to watch her beloved Chelsea and most recently the offer to be the Christmas cover star for a prestigious glossy magazine.
"I’m very excited about that,’ she laughs. ‘It’s so nice they want me and they make a real fuss of you on those magazine shoots." So yes there are anxieties, but there are times of happiness and hope too. Is this what the doctors mean when they talk of ‘Living Well with Alzheimers’.
"Yes, I’m living with it", she says. "I try and ignore it.. Sometimes I don’t even remember that I’ve got it - probably because I’ve got it." And we both laugh. "That was quite good actually", she giggles. "I got a sentence out there that was quite funny. Look I don’t want to sugar coat it - it’s a shit thing to have - but I’m still doing nice things and I’m getting on with it.. What choice do I have?"
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