Sir Billy Connolly has shared that he’s had ‘a couple of serious falls’ after his balance started deteriorating.
The Scottish performer, 80, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease a decade ago on the same day he found out he had prostate cancer, which he later received the all clear on.
In the years since, he’s been open about what it’s like to live with the degenerative disease, sharing earlier this year that although there were difficulties, he had a ‘jolly life’ with ‘no complaints’.
However now, a few months down the line Sir Billy and his wife Pamela Stephenson have spoken about the toll it’s currently taking.
‘It’s very difficult to see the progression exactly, because a lot of things come and go,’ he said.
‘Recently I’ve noticed a deterioration in my balance.
‘That was never such a problem before, but in the last year that has come and it has stayed.’
He added: ‘For some reason, I thought it would go away, because a lot of symptoms have come and gone away … just to defy the symptom spotters.’
Sharing that ‘the shaking has reappeared…’, his wife then added that his ‘balance issue’ had become a ‘significant’ hurdle.
‘Especially since, unfortunately, it resulted in you having a couple of serious falls,’ she added in an article they were jointly interviewed for in The Guardian.
Sir Billy responded: ‘It’s funny, that fall I had when I landed on my jaw reminded me of a thing I used to do on stage.
‘I used to say: “I fell out of bed, but luckily my face broke my fall…”.’
He then said this was ‘adding to the list of things that hold me back’.
‘I feel like I want to go for a walk, but I go for 50 yards and I want to go home, because I’m tired,’ he explained.
‘I’m being encroached upon by this disease.
‘It’s creeping up behind me and stopping me doing things. It’s a cruel disease.’
While they said the progression of the disease had been ‘pretty slow-moving’, he said it didn’t make it ‘any more pleasant’.
Speaking about how their relationship has changed in the wake of Sir Billy’s diagnosis, he shared how his wife now needed to help him get dressed in the morning and how he needed to now ‘get lifts everywhere’ as he ‘can’t drive any more’.
Back in 2021 Sir Billy detailed how Parkinson’s had ‘taken a lot’ from him, including no longer being able to play the banjo.
‘It’s just a noise. I can’t yodel anymore. I can’t smoke cigars. It’s taken more and more of what I like – it’s kind of painful,’ he shared.
But he said his approach was to ‘have a Glasgow attitude’ and ‘deal with it’.
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