Miriam Margolyes has said she thinks she knows when she’s going to die – but she’s refusing to quit acting.
The Harry Potter star opened up on her health after previously being diagnosed with spinal stenosis, a condition which puts pressure on the spinal cord and nerve roots.
The actor spoke about her health battles, saying she knows that she doesn’t have ‘long to live’
‘When you know that you haven’t got long to live – and I’m probably going to die within the next five or six years, if not before, I’m loath to leave behind performing. It’s such a joy,’ she told The Telegraph.
She said that she finds the physical constraints of old age ‘limiting and depressing’, adding: ‘I yearn to play roles that don’t confine me to wheelchairs, but I’m just not strong enough.’
The Call The Midwife actor recently shared that she had had heart surgery, undergoing a procedure called a transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) which prevents a patient from needing open heart surgery.
Speaking on the Table Manners podcast with Jessie and Lennie Ware, she said: ‘I’ve got a cow’s heart now. Well, not the whole heart. I’ve had an aortic valve replaced by a cow’s aortic valve.”
‘I don’t know how common it is,’ she admitted. ‘I’d never heard of that operation. But it saves you from having open heart surgery, which would be infinitely more invasive.’
She then revealed the ‘rather amazing’ keyhole technique as she said that they made ‘two little holes in your groin’.
In the same episode she also spoke about her mobility issues, revealing that she would soon be using a wheelchair.
‘I have a bad back. I’m probably going to be in a wheelchair soon. And you know, you have to come to terms with what life throws at you’ she said.
When Jessie asked her if she had been ‘preparing’ for it, Miriam admitted: ‘Not really preparing for it. I’ve just sort of accepted that it’s probably going to happen.’
Last year, Miriam cited her weight as the cause of her spine issues shortly before being spotted walking with crutches.
Speaking on Elizabeth Day’s How To Fail podcast, she said: ‘‘The one thing I have not conquered and should have conquered is my weight. I am a blubber mass. I am fat. And to be fat and 82 is truly pathetic.’
She continued: ‘It’s such a defeat. A cream bun, a chocolate, a helping of chopped liver is more important than your health and aesthetic presentation?
‘No, it isn’t more important, it’s just greed, lack of discipline, all the things I’m embarrassed by in myself.
‘It is a major failure and because of that I’ve got spinal stenosis, I can’t walk, I’m going to be in a wheelchair before I’m much older.’