Loose Women star Andrea McLean has revealed that doctors said she almost died while suffering from pneumonia and sepsis.
The presenter, 55, told the Mirror how seriously ill she had been during Christmas last year, after a bout of flu wouldn’t go away.
“I didn’t realise how severe my illness was at the time,” she told the publication.
“But the doctors had told my husband, Nick, that had I not got to hospital when I did, had we waited another 24 hours to call for help, I may not be here now.”
McLean says that she was dashed to hospital after collapsing, saying that “what happened over the next few weeks [in hospital] changed my life forever”.
She further explained that she had been ill for a while, suffering from the impact of long Covid.
“I’ve had Covid three times and suffered long covid which left me perpetually exhausted and with an underlying weakness so I seemed to pick every little bug up,”
“I haven’t felt quite right for a very long time, so when my husband and daughter contracted that nasty flu going around in December, I of course caught it too.
"But it lingered with me. I just couldn’t shift it, and it all came to a head the morning I fell to the floor. My blood pressure was 60/40 – it is still very low now – and I think my body just gave up.”
McLean added that it’s only with distance that she’d realised how poorly she was.
“It was only a few weeks after I got home that I realised the magnitude of what had happened – that if I hadn’t gone into hospital that day, I may not be here now,” she added.
Andrea - who went to A&E again last month after falling - said she is “still not back to full strength, and my blood pressure is still very low”.
But the presenter does say the scary experience has given her a new perspective.
“There are rarely second chances in this life, so as I began to regain my strength I knew I had to seize the day and focus on what I really want to do,” she said.
