TV favourite Fiona Phillips has just two important words to say to the public: “Thank you.”
Thank you for the outpouring of love and support since she revealed in Wednesday’s Mirror she has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
Thank you to all the ordinary people who have stopped her in the street to say: “Good luck, we’re rooting for you.”
Thank you to all the celebrities, politicians and sports stars she came to know during more than a decade on the breakfast TV sofa, for sharing their love and concern.
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And above all, thank you to those scientists and medics running the revolutionary trials she is on at University College Hospital, London, to find a drug which will stall or even reverse the disease.
Fiona, 62, says: “People have been so kind to me. Because I was worried about sharing the news I have this awful disease. 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. And so many people have told me about how Alzheimer’s has hit their families, as it has attacked mine, and somehow it just makes them feel a little bit less alone.”
Together we read through some of the messages Fiona – married to ITV This Morning editor Martin Frizell – has received.
One is from a reader who says he bumped into her at a TV studio when he was a bodyguard for Wayne Rooney. He writes: “She was lovely and bubbly. I still smile when I remember that very brief meeting. I am at the same stage of Alzheimer’s as she is now, sadly.”
Fiona is delighted by the message but full of sympathy for someone sharing her shattering diagnosis. She says: “I remember him. How sweet of him to write.”
Although Fiona can remember this passing meeting perhaps 20 years ago, events of the last week are far harder for her. When I ask how she felt about seeing her picture and story in the newspapers and on TV this week, she is uncertain.
Fiona, who was diagnosed last year after months of brain fog and anxiety, says: “Oh, ‘I didn’t really take much notice.”
Perhaps one of the hardest parts of Alzheimer’s in someone as young as her is that much of the time she is the same laughing, gossipy, irrepressible Fiona – articulate and full of stories about the distant past or the exact moment we are in. But the recent past can be lost to her.
We read out loud a lovely message from Frank Bruno - Fiona giving it her best impersonation of the boxing champ complete with his trademark laugh. He writes: “As a boxer we accept the fact as we get older we may have dement-ia or Alzheimer’s but this news did come as a shock.”
Fiona adds: “It came as a shock to me too. And I don’t remember doing any boxing. Frank used to come on GMTV when I was working there and he was always so lovely. What a great man.”
Other celebrities and former colleagues also paid tribute to Fiona this week. Holly Willoughby, Piers Morgan, Kate Garroway, Lorraine Kelly and Susanna Reid were joined by politicians including Harriet Harman and Yvette Cooper.
Many have called her “brave”. But she is not so sure about that.
Fiona adds: “I’m not brave. I’ve just got to get on with it. I mean, what’s the alternative, to lie down and give up?”
But without doubt there is bravery in her – and her family’s – decision to speak out about the illness.
Fiona says: “I didn’t want to make a big thing about it. But then Martin said, ‘Do you want to embrace this and what is happening to you… or do you want to hide away?’ And I didn’t want to hide away. I want to go out and I want to work.”
And why should Fiona, or anyone with Alzhiemer’s, feel they must hide as if they’ve done something wrong or their condition is somehow shameful?
Fiona remembers how her mum Amy, who developed dementia in her late 50s before dying with it in 2006 aged 74, was initially desperate to keep her illness secret. Soon after her dad Neville was diagnosed with the disease, dying in 2012. Fiona adds: “Mum didn’t want anyone to know she had it. It was like it was shameful and it is sad people have been made to feel like that. I hope by speaking out it might make it easier for others to talk to friends and neighbours if it is happening in their family.”
It is the messages from members of the public and readers of Fiona’s column in the Mirror where she has worked for almost 20 years which bring a tear to her eye.
Val Stead from Pontypridd in South Wales writes: “You have the support and understanding of all your followers. Many are on team Fiona.”
Fiona says: “What a lovely woman.” Thinking back to her mum’s Welsh roots, she adds: “A lovely Welsh woman.” It’s clear Amy’s presence, and her struggle with Alzheimer’s, are permanently close to Fiona.
She says: “When Mum had it she just cried all the time and would say, ‘Why am I here?’ But with Dad it was different. He’d laugh all the time. I’d go and see him and he’d say, ‘I saw Father Christmas outside the other day.’
“I’d say, ‘Oh really, what was he like?’ ‘A really nice bloke actually.’ ‘As you’d hope,’ I’d reply. Of course I went along with it because it would be cruel to say, ‘Don’t be so silly Dad, of course you didn’t see Father Christmas outside.’
Now the Alzheimer’s baton in the Phillips family has been passed to Fiona. And although her condition is mild compared to her parents in their later years there will be times when her children have to “go along” with her in the way she did for her parents.
She is full of praise for sons Nat, 24 and Mackenzie, 21. Fiona says: “The boys haven’t said much about it but they are very sweet. Mackenzie, who’s still living at home, just says things like, ‘Don’t worry about tidying up Mum, I’ll do that, you rest.’ I guess that’s his way of showing he cares. They are lovely boys.”
Fiona’s understanding of how Alzheimer’s sinisterly grows until it overwhelms people is clear because of her family’s history. She adds: “I do worry about becoming a hopeless old lady not able to do anything for myself.”
For Fiona it is important to share the anxieties that come with the disease - and the sense of depression it can bring.
She has no intention of sugar coating this illness for the public.
Fiona says: “I am trying to keep smiling and getting on with things but it is a bloody horrible disease.
“All I can do is keep hoping these trials will make a difference and help find a cure. We have to stop it massacring families like mine.”
* America’s regulatory health authority has fully approved a drug that slows the progression of Alzheimer’s giving hope to millions.
Leqembi focuses on a protein in the brain, beta-amyloid, believed to be one of the main causes of the disease. It is said to be “safe and effective”.
