Prue Leith is opening up about a recent health scare that led to her hospitalization out of fear she was having a stroke.
Leith, 86, recalled experiencing a “migraine attack” during a trip to Yorkshire, England. She detailed the medical scare in a column called “Prue’s News” in The Oldie’s September issue, out Friday, August 14, published in part by The Sun.
The former Great British Baking Show judge noted that while she was confident about having a migraine attack — after years of dealing with the issue — her husband, John Playfair, called an ambulance when her speech turned into an “incomprehensible jumble of disconnected words.”
“It followed a familiar path. First, I can see only half of whatever I’m looking at,” Leith wrote. “This is speedily followed by a bright circle of flickering, coloured lights in the upper right field of vision.”
She noted that usually if she doesn’t “swiftly swallow one of my migraine ‘bombs,’ (paracetamol, ibuprofen and sumatriptan) a crashing headache will follow.”
Leith explained that her husband, however, was convinced she was “having a stroke” when she started to speak in “disconnected words.”
“I tried to tell him it was just a migraine, but I couldn’t string two words together,” she recalled, noting that’s when Playfair called their doctor.
Prue Leith. Antony Jones/Getty Images for Pimm’s
Leith remembered telling the doctor that she could raise her arms and make a fist, insisting nothing hurt and her face wasn’t drooping. The doctor, however, still called an ambulance to take her to the hospital.
“The ambulance man asked me the same questions, as did a nurse on arrival at A&E, and so, after a six-hour wait, did the doctor,” she wrote.
The celebrity chef said she assured the doctor at the hospital that it was a migraine after recovering “coherent speech” by the time they met.
The doctor decided to do a CT scan as an extra precaution.
“Two hours later, I had one, waited another hour for the results, and was released at 2 a.m.,” Leith shared. “[The doctor later] explained why he wanted to refer me for a brain scan, just to be sure (people of my age, 86, are prone to mini-strokes).”
Leith, who revealed she had her first migraine at 9 years old, said, “I knew all along that all I had was a migraine.”
She explained, “But since the speech problem is a classic symptom of a stroke, and my extreme old age being a time when mini-strokes are common, everyone was determined to be safe not sorry.”
Leigh added that she wasn’t upset over her long stay at the hospital, thanking the National Health Service (NHS) personnel for being “cheerful, sympathetic, polite, helpful and professional.”
“You may have to wait forever, but when it is your turn, you are treated as if you were the only patient in A&E,” she concluded.
