17 July 2023 , 19:54
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TV presenter Fiona Phillips will allow cameras to follow her for a special ITV documentary after she revealed she has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
Filming will start later this year for the programme which will show Daily Mirror columnist Fiona grappling with the emotional and physical realities of the disease.
But it will also highlight the hope she and her family have as she participates in a groundbreaking drug trial.
Fiona, 62, said: “I want to go out and I want to work. I’ve just got to get on with it. I mean, what’s the alternative, to lie down and give up?”
The TV favourite disclosed her diagnosis to Mirror readers earlier this month and has since thanked everyone for their overwhelming support.
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Fiona is creating a documentary following her Alzheimer's diagnosis (Getty Images)
The broadcaster went public with her diagnosis earlier this month (Daily Mirror)Fiona is currently taking part in a groundbreaking drugs trial which scientists hope could slow or even reverse the illness for millions of sufferers in the years to come.
The former GMTV presenter said: “People have been so kind to me. I was anxious people would be staring or whispering about me or would just write me off as a batty old woman. But there has been incredible kindness.”
Speaking to the Mirror's editor Alison Phillips, Fiona said: "This disease has ravaged my family and now it has come for me. And all over the country there are people of all different ages whose lives are being affected by it - it’s heartbreaking. I just hope I can help find a cure which might make things better for others in the future."
Deep down Fiona had long feared this moment was waiting for her. And yet it was still the most gut punching, shuddering shock when a doctor told her one afternoon last year: “Your results are back.. And yes, I’m afraid they do show early stages of Alzheimer's Disease."
“It’s something I might have thought I’d get at 80”, she says. “But I was still only 61 years old. “I felt more angry than anything else because this disease has already impacted my life in so many ways; my poor mum was crippled with it, then my dad, my grandparents, my uncle. It just keeps coming back for us.”
Fiona has been carrying the secret of her illness for 18 months but today has chosen to share the news with readers of the Mirror where she has been a columnist for almost 20 years.
“No one has known because I haven’t been blaring out loud, ‘oh yeah, I’ve got Alzheimer's'. And I have been so worried people will judge me or put labels on me. It’s a horrible bloody secret to divulge.”