STEPHEN Flynn has opened up about the disease which left him disabled as a young teenager and how wanting to be a good dad made him have “life-changing” surgery.
The SNP candidate for Aberdeen South, Stephen Flynn, was a guest on This Morning earlier today as he spoke to hosts Cat Deeley and Ben Shephard on several personal issues.
The SNP Westminster leader discussed an array of topics which spanned from his love of football to how he is not Taylor Swift's biggest fan.
However, Flynn also opened up about his past diagnosis of avascular necrosis and how it led to him not being able to walk unaided throughout his life.
This Morning presenter Deeley said: “Stephen you had a disease when you were 13, you just mentioned it there, avascular necrosis, what is that?”
“Essentially, I was running through school one day,” Flynn started.
“I was given the school register, as you’re given to go take up to the front door of the reception, and I jumped down a flight of stairs and I collapsed.”
Deeley replied with a shocked tone: “Out of nowhere, you felt no pain?”
“Out of nowhere, yeah,” replied Flynn.
He continued: “I actually had a lot of pain in my knee.
“I had to drag myself along the floor and up another flight of stairs.
“I had one of those really old mobile phones you might remember them.”
“The bricks,” interjected Deelay.
“A Motorola Nokia thing,” Flynn agreed.
He then added: “I don’t know why I had it, but I phoned my dad up and they phoned the school, and the teachers came down and got me.
“I spent the next 18 years basically as a disabled man.”
Flynn (below) has previously discussed working as a politician while suffering from a bone condition.
He also spoke about how “it was hellish” to work in Westminster and how he couldn’t walk unaided until 2020 when he got a hip replacement.
Continuing, Flynn said: “I got my hip taken out a couple of years ago, over the winter of 2020, which was life-changing because obviously up to that point I had walked about with crutches.
“Avascular necrosis is essentially no blood flowing to the bones so when I jumped down the stairs the bone was so brittle it wasn’t able to support me.”
“So does the bone just crumble and crack,” asked Deeley, to which Flynn replied: “Yeah effectively.”
He added: “You end up with really bad arthritis, so I had really bad arthritis in my hip as well.
“On a personal level that was a huge challenge for me going through my whole teenage years, everyone else is out partying and I was coming along with a crutch.”
Deeley then went on to ask if it was true that he wanted to PE teacher when he was at school, to which Flynn jokingly said yes or a football player for the Scotland team.
He went on to say: “My life completely transformed, and I spent the best part of a year or two in my mid-teens just lying in bed.
“I was on traction where they pull your leg out and try and get the blood to flow and none of these things worked.
“It forced me to go and read books and go on and become the person I probably am today because you develop a little bit of a thick skin when you’re disabled.”
The 35-year-old then explained that being a good father to his two young boys, aged two and four, was a real motivator for him to get the hip surgery.
He said: “I've got two young boys, and they are brilliant, and I want to be able to go to the park and run with them, have one on my shoulders and one on my back at the same time, and just be a good dad.
“I wouldn’t have been able to do a lot of things I can now if I was still walking with the crutches.”
“I wanted to go to the park and run around with them - and just be a good dad” @StephenFlynnSNP #ThisMorning pic.twitter.com/4lJBSAgir7
— Tom French (@tomfrench85) June 24, 2024
