Former model Penny Lancaster has recounted her horrifying experience where she thought she was “dying” after undergoing emergency surgery. She underwent surgery after suffering a slipped disc in the run-up to her wedding to rock star Sir Rod Stewart.
After keeling over in excruciating pain during a trip to New York in 2006, Penny was told after an MRI in London that the slipped disc was perilously close to severing several nerves.
Speaking in her new book Someone Like Me, the 54-year-old explained what she went through on the operating table as she thought she lay there dying.
She said: “When I shut my eyes, a bright white light appeared. I’m dying, I concluded. This is the white tunnel of light that everyone talks about.
“Insane, the things that go through your mind when you’re hallucinating. These cannot be my last moments, I thought, worrying that I’d be found dead and still looking terrified.
“So I laid myself out serenely, clasped my hands across my chest and closed my eyes. When I woke, I was surprised I was still alive.”
Penny thinks the effects of the morphine the medics gave her were causing her to hallucinate, but the doctor forgot to tell her how big the impact could be.
She said: “After many reassurances from the surgeon that he was the man for the job, no one had explained to me how the morphine might make me feel.
“Immediately after I came round from the operation, I had a violent reaction to it. I couldn’t stop vomiting. Then, every time I lay down, the flowers and the TV in the room started spinning.”
Penny had want to postpone the operation due to her upcoming nuptials, but her doctor persuaded her to get it done or she would be walking down the aisle “in leg callipers and a colostomy bag”.
The loved-up pair went on to marry on June 16, 2007 in Portofino, Italy. The couple have two sons – Alastair and Aiden – but Sir Rod has six more children from previous relationships.
It comes after Penny shared how colleagues on Loose Women helped her as she fought a health battle during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Chatting to Chris Evans on his Virgin Radio show, Penny revealed she has maintained a close relationship with some of the panellists she met during her time on the show.
She said her colleagues pulled through for her as she battled with what she thought was a mental health issue during lockdown.
Penny said: “One of the other major things was when they saved my life when I thought I was going through depression in the middle of lockdown, which I think a lot of people were suffering from.
“But in fact it was the menopause and it was my Loose Women girls that went ‘darling Penny, this is not depression. This is your hormones.’ So, they’ve been with me on many a journey and I’m so grateful for them.”