Fiona Phillips describes Alzheimer's battle as chasing a £5 note in the wind
Fiona Phillips has likened the struggles of Alzheimer's to "like trying to chase a £5 note that's fallen out of your purse on a gusty day" in a heartfelt piece.
The broadcaster, who received her diagnosis at 61 in 2023, explained that each time "she thinks she had caught the £5 note, it whips away again" in a moving account of her experience.
The mum-of-two revealed she had "no awareness" of her tendency to repeat herself and would sometimes lose track of what she was doing or where she was going shortly after receiving the news.
Now 64, the television personality is managing life with Alzheimer's, with much of her support coming from spouse Martin Frizell, who stepped down from his position as This Morning's editor last year, noting he anticipated his "family priorities to [soon] change".
Fiona, alongside Martin's assistance, has penned a memoir titled Remember When: My Life With Alzheimer's, due for release this month, with excerpts appearing in today's press.
In these revealing sections, Fiona, who fronted GMTV for 15 years, shared: "Everywhere I look there are memories. I know they are there. And yet so many of them feel out of my reach now.
"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," reports the Mirror.
"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."
Fiona, a Mirror columnist, shared: "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 reported how the celebrity, hailing from Canterbury, Kent, was participating in trials for an innovative new medication that researchers believe could decelerate or potentially reverse the condition for countless individuals in future years.
Martin, who has been married to Fiona for 28 years, expressed a harrowing sentiment in the extracts, saying: "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.
"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.
"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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