by Fiona Phillips shared the heartbreaking details of the tribute that her Alzheimer had to her husband, who said he wished she had cancer instead.
The 64-year-old television presenter has been open to her illness since her diagnosis in July 2023.
After two years, Phillips and her 28 -year -old husband Martin Frizell, 65, have shared the complicated journey of her life in a new memoir “Think when: my life with Alzheimer’s”.
Martin divided his devastating approval and admitted that he would instead diagnose with cancer – according to an extract shared with the Daily Mail.
He explained: “It is a shocking thing to say, but at least she might have a chance of a healing and would certainly have had a treatment path and a number of support and care packages.
“But that is not for Alzheimer’s. Just like there are no funny or inspiring Tikok videos or fashion shooters with a smiling, healthy survivor in the remission”
He added that after the diagnosis they are only “handling” alone.
Since the diagnosis, Martin took over full responsibility for the budget, from the payment of bills for housework, and he said that he used to be “a matter of course”. In order to relieve part of the pressure of himself and her 23-year-old son Mackenzie, he hired a trained supervisor.
From January 2025 he helps Fiona to “brush and shower teeth”, to dress, eat and drink themselves.
On difficult days when Fiona experienced moments with “extreme confusion”, Martin said that she asked to see her deceased parents.
In the memoirs, the former GMTV host has described their own challenges when accepting the diagnosis and the deterioration that lay ahead of it.
She said that she now finds her “excruciatingly difficult” about her life.
“Sometimes I get through a sentence halfway and I can’t remember where I head for it or for the word I was looking for. It feels terrible,” she said.
The former TV presenter compared her condition with “Attempt to pursue a 5 pound grade that fell out of her handbag on a gusty day”.
The couple decided to share the diagnosis with friends and family to explain an “unusual behavior”, which Fiona did not hold.
“But he and the doctors, whom I was constantly backwards and forward, would say that I repeatedly repeated myself and that I sometimes forgot what I was doing or where I went.
“The strange thing was that I had no awareness of it,” she said.
In November 2024, Martin announced that he would support ITV this morning after more than a decade.
At that time he wrote: “Next year I expect my family priorities to change, so I have to release time for you.”
In the meantime, Fiona, who was 74 years old in 2006, shared her concerns about how people will “perceive” her.
She said: “There is still a problem with this disease that thinks the public thinks of old people, bends over a stick and talks to himself.
“But I’m still here, I am getting out of coffee, dinner with Martin and every day,” she said to The Mirror.
