RONAN Keating’s wife Storm fought back tears today as recalled her being temporarily paralysed following a hospital dash.
She was diagnosed with cauda equina syndrome last March, a rare condition where the nerves in the lower back are compressed.
Storm, 40, told Loose Women today: “I ended up having emergency back surgery. I prolapsed my disc, and I worked on through it. I had been warned you might need surgery so I tried everything with a physiotherapist and I had steroid injections.
“At first they were amazing but after five days I was flat on my back and they were only masking the pain.”
Ronan said he called an ambulance after seeing Storm in agony and it was the scariest experience of his life.
He explained: “I knew she was scared and afraid but she was so strong.
“It was the first time I had to call an ambulance in my life, I was an absolute wreck. I was a mess.”
Storm was overwhelmed with emotion, saying she woke up from the operation without any feeling in the lower half of her body and with no controle over her bowel or bladder.
She revealed: “On day three I wokeup in the hospital, everything waist down, I told them everything is numb, my legs, my bowel.”
She added that if she had not been in hospital she could have been left “in a wheelchair with nappies”.
Storm had another operation and said when she was told it had been successful she burst into tears in the hospital.
But she still faces a long road to a full recovery, and still has numbness in her right leg.
Ronan said he cried “tears of joy” when the surgeon called him to tell him the good news.
He urged Loose Women viewers to “paying attention to your body, listen, if you’ve got something you’re worried about talk to somebody.”
