"It's great to be laughing again": Denise Drysdale bounces back
Denise Drysdale is back and better than ever as she gave her first interview to Woman’s Day since going MIA from the regular spotlight.
The popular TV presenter opened up about her health crisis battling Trigeminal Neuralgia (TN) and the life-changing brain surgery that followed.
Denise, who is 73 now, said in the in-depth interview: "It's great to be laughing again. I haven't really laughed in over a year – my life had become a nightmare of agonising pain and fear."
For the past 13 months Drysdale had been living with the immensely painful facial condition. Experiencing her first flare up in May 2021, she described the pain as "unbearable" and "searing", revealing it became so intense she struggled to breathe.
"It was like a white-hot lightning bolt that would shoot across my face. The tiniest thing set it off, like smiling, brushing your teeth or hair, or blowing your nose."
The agonising episodes became more excruciating and frequent, meaning she suffered around five attacks per day, leaving her struggling to get out of bed in the morning.
"I would inch myself up slowly, so as not to trigger it off. There were times I'd burst into tears, fearful of when it would next strike," she says.
"Stupidly, I thought it would work itself out. I'm a stoic person and very little rattles me. I was hoping it would just go away, but it didn't."
Feeling increasingly anxious she withdrew from life, stopped seeing friends, turned down work and holed herself up at home, dreading the next agonising attack.
"It became so debilitating that I bit the bullet – I was referred to a specialist, who diagnosed trigeminal neuralgia.
"I thought to myself, this old chook must be working her way through the medical book of horror illnesses. I was beginning to think my next car should be an ambulance."
Indeed, in the past four years Denise has endured a knee replacement, a blood clot in the leg, fought a nasty staph infection and suffered from a detached retina.
In October 2020 she even fractured a shoulder in a nasty mishap while filming Holey Moley. "For months after the fall, I couldn't put on a bra or take off a T-shirt," she says.
But worst of all? "I couldn't remove the cork from a bottle of bubbly!"
Following Denise's TN diagnosis, she underwent regular acupuncture therapy, which provided some pain relief but was not a cure.
"In September last year I was taken to a Gold Coast hospital by my eldest son Rob, who found me writhing in agony."
At times, Denise admits she sunk into a terrible depression. "I feared the crippling pain was going to be my life. That I couldn't go out, couldn't have fun with friends, couldn't smile, couldn't cuddle my grandkids or go to work."
Denise kept her painful ordeal quiet for fear of being seen as a hypochondriac.
"I seemed to be lurching from one medical horror to the next, and thought people would be sick to death of hearing about my latest malady.
"To know my two boys, Rob and Pete, were worried sick upset me," she says, noting that when her eldest grandson Bodhi, 10, remarked, 'Nanny, I wish you weren't in pain,'" she burst into tears.
Denise was told by her TN specialist that brain surgery was the best bet in terms of finding lasting relief.
"The notion of brain surgery terrified me. But I'd tried everything else, from medication to an array of other treatments. In utter despair I agreed to fly to Sydney to undergo the surgery, which I did in June.
"The surgery lasted two-and-a-half hours, and it left me with a small scar at the base of my head near my right ear, which is now healing beautifully. Dr Ben Jonker, my neurosurgeon, must have learned sewing from the nuns.
"From the moment the anaesthesia wore off, I felt different and there was no pain. I couldn't believe it.
Over a month on still no pain. I've got my fun-filled old life back."
Check out the latest issue of Woman’s Day for the full interview. And welcome back, Denise! We are so glad to see you again.
Image: Getty