‘If they’d offered to shoot me with a machine gun I’d have taken it’, says Vanessa Feltz after hospital dash
VANESSA Feltz has revealed her recent hospital agony was so severe she’d have begged someone shoot her with a machine gun if they had one.
The 62-year-old broadcaster needed emergency surgery last week after falling ill with a kidney stone.
Straight-talking Vanessa said the condition’s nasty reputation is well deserved in an exclusive interview with The Sun on behalf of online bingo site Heart Bingo.
She said: “Everything they say about the f**king kidney stone, I mean it’s an understatement if you ask me.
“The really funny thing was, I had done a show just the night before on assisted dying. While I was in hospital with this kidney stone, honestly, if anyone had entered with a machine gun, I would have asked them to blow my head off.
“It was so painful, it was almost like a fictional pain, it was so ridiculous. I’ve had two kids by natural childbirth, this is way off the scale of that.”
Kidney stones are masses made of salt and minerals, and can be anywhere between a grain of salt and a golf ball in size.
There are several different types – calcium stones, struvite stones, uric acid stones and cystine stones.
The stones have potential to cause severe pain, and while most pass on their own through the ureter – the tube between the kidney and the bladder – some need to be surgically removed.
Tough Vanessa told her surgeon she was determined to go to work just hours after the procedure despite being “away with the fairies”.
She ended up back on the box less than 48 hours later, which she described as a “poor show for me”.
Of her desire to crack on with life, she said: “It’s like a work ethic family thing, isn’t it? It’s the way you’re brought up.”
Meanwhile, Vanessa also told us that she’s thrilled her former This Morning co-star Phillip Schofield has returned to TV.
Phillip, 62, has filmed a three-part series on Channel 5 called Cast Away that sees him marooned alone on an island near Madagascar.
It’s his first telly appearance since he walked away from ITV early last year after admitting to lying about an affair with a young male colleague.
Vanessa said: “I’m surprised, but delighted, and I hope it’s great entertainment, and I hope that he achieves from it whatever he wants to achieve.
“I’d like to see it, I’m intrigued to see it and I wish him all the very best.”