Fiona Phillips shares heartbreaking Alzheimer's struggle as husband 'wished' for cancer instead
'Sometimes I get halfway through a sentence and I can't remember where I was heading with it or the word I was looking for'
Fiona has opened up about her diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease
(Image: 2017 Getty Images )
Fiona Phillips has opened up about her struggles with Alzheimer's, comparing the disease to "trying to chase a £5 note that's fallen out of your purse on a gusty day". In a candid new article, the TV presenter shared an emotional reflection on her experience, saying each time "she thinks she had caught the £5 note, it whips away again".
The mother-of-two, who received her diagnosis at 61 in 2023, expressed how she was initially oblivious to her repetitive conversations and would often forget her actions or destinations shortly after being diagnosed. Now at 64, the television presenter is navigating life with Alzheimer's, with the support of her husband Martin Frizell.
Martin, the former editor of This Morning, has been taking on much of her care after leaving his position last year in anticipation of shifting family responsibilities. Aided by Martin, Fiona has penned a memoir titled Remember When: My Life With Alzheimer's, set for release later this month, with adapted excerpts currently circulating in the press.
In these selected extracts, Fiona, known for her 15-year stint on GMTV, said: "Everywhere I look there are memories. I know they are there. And yet so many of them feel out of my reach now.
Fiona, who has been married to Martin Frizell since 1997, said she had "no awareness" she was forgetting things
(Image: 2024 Getty Images )
"It's like I stretch out to touch them, but then just as I'm about to grasp it, the memory skips away from me. And I can't catch up with it. Like trying to chase a £5 note that's fallen out of your purse on a gusty day. Each time I think I've caught it, it whips away again.
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"I couldn't be writing this at all without my husband Martin and my closest friends, who are helping me articulate more clearly the thoughts I once had that are now harder for me to reach."
As reported by the Mirror, Fiona shared her experience, noting: "Nowadays, I can find talking about my life agonisingly difficult. Sometimes I get halfway through a sentence and I can't remember where I was heading with it or the word I was looking for. It feels awful.
"Gradually, Martin and I thought maybe I should start telling more people. Martin felt that if more people knew what was happening to me then they wouldn't judge me if I did ever start behaving unusually – not that I thought I did. It was hardly like I was going down the street half-clothed, yelling at people.
"But he and the doctors, who I was constantly backwards and forwards to see, would say that I kept repeating myself and that sometimes I forgot what I was doing or where I was going. The strange thing was I had no awareness of that."
In 2023, the Mirror detailed how the Canterbury-born star has been participating in clinical trials for an innovative new medication that researchers believe has the potential to slow or even halt the effects of the disease for millions in the future.
Nevertheless, for Fiona, the help has arrived all too late, so much so that her husband Martin confessed: "Being brutally honest, I wish Fiona had contracted cancer instead. It's a shocking thing to say, but at least then she might have had a chance of a cure, and certainly would have had a treatment pathway and an array of support and care packages."
He continued, pointing out the disparity in support: "But that's not there for Alzheimer's. Just like there are no funny or inspiring TikTok videos or fashion shoots with smiling, healthy, in-remission survivors."
The sense of abandonment post-diagnosis is evident as he noted: "After someone is diagnosed with Alzheimer's, they are pretty much left to their own devices. There is nothing more that can be done and you are left to cope alone."
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Fiona's memoir, Remember When: My Life With Alzheimer's (Macmillan, £22), is scheduled for release on July 17.
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