‘I thought I was dying’, admits Coleen Nolan as Loose Women star reveals she’s made major lifestyle change
COLEEN Nolan has opened up about a huge lifestyle change she made after a health emergency.
The Loose Women star, 58, called it quits with smoking after four decades of puffing away when she developed a terrifying chest infection.
She found herself frequently struggling for breath and became convinced she was going to die during one particularly bad episode this winter.
Coleen told the Mirror: “I literally couldn’t walk a few feet without stopping to catch my breath.
“It was the scariest thing, feeling constantly winded. After Loose Women one day, our warm-up guy Lee insisted on taking me to see a doctor, who put me on antibiotics.
“Being a typical woman and mum, I kept saying I’d be fine.”
Despite taking meds, her condition continued to worsen.
The situation reached a head when the ITV panellist met her partner Michael at a hotel one night in December, and found herself unable to speak because her airways were so constricted.
She added: “By the time we’d gone up in the elevator and walked a few paces to my room, I was gasping and trying to say that I couldn’t breathe.
“I had a full-scale panic attack and the more stressed I got and the more I cried, the less able I was to breathe.
“I genuinely thought ‘I’m going to die in my hotel room, away from home’. It was really frightening.
“The whole thing lasted two minutes but it felt like an hour.”
After the incident Coleen made an emergency appointment with her doctor at home.
There she was told that if she carried on smoking, she could end up with COPD or emphysema.
The news gave her a shock to the system, as she wants to stay healthy for as long as possible to spend time with her kids.
She was sent for an X-ray and blood tests, and convinced herself that she already had lung cancer or COPD.
“When I went back to get the results and was told my X-ray had come back clear, it was a massive relief,” she exhaled.
“My chest will probably never recover but hopefully quitting will mean it won’t get any worse. I felt like the universe was saying ‘This is your last chance’.”
Now Coleen has been cig free for 12 weeks, which took a heroic effort from her as she has been smoking 35 a day since the age of 12.