Dame Prue Leith has reassured fans she is "alive and kicking" after being rushed to hospital over a suspected stroke. The former Great British Bake Off judge, 86, who is married to John Playfair, revealed in her magazine column that she recently suffered a "migraine attack" but was unable to speak, prompting her husband to raise the alarm.
Positive Update on Instagram
Taking to Instagram on Friday, the TV star issued a positive update on the situation, saying: "For those that have messaged me, I wrote a piece of @theoldiemagazine about my trip to hospital a couple of months ago. 'I was fine shortly after and I am very much alive and kicking now!"
Just days ago, Prue, who quit Bake Off earlier this year after almost a decade on air, explained that the incident unfolded while she and John were staying in Yorkshire.
The Incident in Yorkshire
Writing in her Prue's News column for the upcoming edition of The Oldie, Prue said: "A few weeks ago, staying in Yorkshire, I had a migraine attack. It followed a familiar path. First, I can see only half of whatever I’m looking at.
"This is speedily followed by a bright circle of flickering, coloured lights in the upper right field of vision. I don’t swiftly swallow one of my migraine ‘bombs’ (three pills: paracetamol, ibuprofen and sumatriptan), a crashing headache will follow."
In quotes published by The Sun she said: "This time, my incomprehensible jumble of disconnected words convinced John I was having a stroke. I tried to tell him it was just a migraine, but I couldn’t string two words together."
Hospital Visit and Recovery
Prue then explained that even though she could raise her right arm and her face was not drooping, both symptoms used to check for a stroke, the operator that John spoke to decided to send an ambulance. She soon found herself at Harrogate Hospital.
What followed was a six-hour wait in A&E. After eventually undergoing a CT scan at midnight, she was released at two o'clock in the morning.
She concluded her column by noting that whilst she "knew all along" she was having a migraine, because loss of speech is a major symptom of a stroke, it was better "safe than sorry" in this case.
