Loose Women star Andrea McLean has shared a health update after suffering from a "scary" illness that left her close to death.
The former ITV show panelist shared in February that she had battled pneumonia and sepsis a month prior after coming down with flu in December.
She spent five days in hospital including a visit to a respiratory ward before being sent home to receive outpatient treatment.
Reflecting on her ordeal, McLean shared that she believes if she hadn't visited the hospital when she did, she would have died.
"I didn’t realise how severe my illness was at the time. But the doctors had told my husband, Nick, that had I not got to hospital when I did, had we waited another 24 hours to call for help, I may not be here now," she told The Mirror.
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Opening up on what led to her hospital stay, she said: "I got up to go to the bathroom and just fell to the floor. By the time the paramedics arrived, they said my blood pressure was so low they had to stabilise me before moving me.
"Our bedroom is in the loft and they couldn’t get the stretcher around the tight bend, but eventually I managed to slide down the stairs, and was rushed to hospital. What happened over the next few weeks changed my life forever."
She continued: "I’ve had COVID three times and suffered long COVID which left me perpetually exhausted and with an underlying weakness so I seemed to pick every little bug up.
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"I haven’t felt quite right for a very long time, so when my husband and daughter contracted that nasty flu going around in December, I of course caught it too.
"But it lingered with me. I just couldn’t shift it, and it all came to a head the morning I fell to the floor. My blood pressure was 60/40 – it is still very low now – and I think my body just gave up."
She recalled that she was in and out of the hospital throughout January, and that it was only after she returned home that she "realised the magnitude of what had happened."
