Gloria: I nearly died cooking lamb for dinner
BEAMING on the red carpet, Gloria Hunniford looks elegant, glamorous and the picture of good health.
She also appears more svelte than usual – perhaps the only sign of a health scare that forced the 73-year-old to spend ten days in hospital hooked up to a drip.
Miss Hunniford, who looked stylish in a black and gold trouser suit at the Pride of Britain awards this week, has told how she developed potentially life-threatening blood poisoning – after cutting her finger.
The TV presenter sliced through her left index finger with a knife as she cleaned meat from a lamb bone.
At the time of the accident, earlier this year, Miss Hunniford believed she had a superficial cut which needed nothing more than a plaster.
But two days later her hand had swelled up to three times its normal size. She quickly became feverish, and found she had an ‘ominous weal’ running up the inside of her left arm almost to her armpit.
Her husband, celebrity hairdresser Stephen Way, took her to A&E, where doctors immediately hooked her up to IV antibiotics.
In an interview, Miss Hunniford said: ‘It was a bit of a shock as I am pretty healthy in general and had no idea that this sort of thing could happen from a simple nick to the finger. Doctors said it was just one of those things but that bacterial infections from raw or cooked meat are the worst.
‘Apparently if someone gets playfully scratched by a cat, they should be careful, as those sorts of wounds can develop into infections.
‘When I first arrived at hospital I did ask a doctor if my kind of infection could be serious and his reply was that before antibiotics had been discovered, people died of this type of blood poisoning, which was sobering!
‘In my right arm, which the IV needle was going onto, I developed cellulitis – an infection under the skin – which needed treating as well.’
After her ordeal, she began taking multivitamins and probiotics to help her body recover after taking so many antibiotics. She is also on a healthy eating plan ‘a bit like the new Atkins’ which involves cutting out sugar and carbohydrates. She said: ‘I feel a lot better on that kind of diet as it stabilises blood sugar levels.’
A spokesman for Miss Hunniford said: ‘Gloria is a great advocate of a healthy lifestyle and she always has been.
‘She keeps active by walking the dogs and doing static exercise like cycling. She has cut the sugar and the carbohydrates out of her diet and she has noticed a real difference in her body and her energy levels.’