MARTIN FRIZELL: The heartbreaking day my wife Fiona Phillips didn't recognise our own son

Fiona Phillips’ husband has revealed one of the most heartbreaking moments of her Alzheimer’s battle - the day she didn’t recognise their own son.

Martin Frizellquit his job as editor of This Morning last year in order to help care forFiona after her early onset diagnosis. But in a new book written by the two of them, Martin, 66, reveals things were even worse than many had imagined.

For, Fiona, 64, had also been suffering from a separate undisclosed physical illness for months. And Martin’s convinced the extreme pain extreme pain further exacerbated the Alzheimer’s. At one point he describes her as being “close to delirium” - which led to a heartwrenching new low point in her condition: the day she thought their eldest son Nathaniel, 26, was a possible intruder.

In the book Remember When - which comes off embargo today - Martin recalls: “One weekend, Nat was home from the Army and making tea in the kitchen while Fiona and I sat watching television. She became terribly distressed. ‘Who’s that man in the kitchen?’ she asked me. That’s Nat,’ I said gently. ‘Our son. He’s home for the weekend.’ She was in such a state that she didn’t even seem upset that she had asked the question.”

Martin is confident Nat didn’t hear her comment - saying he would have been “devastated” if he had.

Fiona an Martin’s younger son Mackenzie, 23, still lives at home and, like Nat, has also been a huge support to his mum. Fiona initially waited to tell her boys after being diagnosed as she and Martin were terrified that they might also be predisposed to early onset Alzheimer’s.

Both Fiona’s parents and several close family members had suffered badly with the disease. Her parents were affected in very different, but equally disturbing ways. Doctors explained Fiona hadn't inherited it from her parents as such, but they had passed down other genetic traits made her ‘predisposed’, or rather more susceptible, to get it. Fortunately Martin and Fiona discovered the boys were not at the same increased risk.

That doesn’t mean it’s been any easier for them to watch what they mum, the one-time vibrant and confident GMTV star, was going through. ‘It’s tough for them. They see their mum like this and it’s very upsetting,” says Martin. “But what choice do we have but to keep on going?'

Former Mirror columnist Fiona isn’t doing any interviews around her book and Martin is keen to let her words speak for themselves. In an early chapter, she poignantly reveals her fear that she'll forget the little everyday moments she shares with her sons.

Speaking of her desire to be her former self, she wrote: “I want to watch Chelsea beat Arsenal 3–0 at home. I want our son Nat to come home on leave from the Army and give me one of his bear-like hugs. I want our youngest son Mackenzie to bring me a cup of tea and a biscuit when we sit watching TV together. I want to be me.”

Sadly - as Fiona knew while penning those words - those moments are only going to become harder and harder to have. Fiona was diagnosed in early 2022, aged 61. She bravely chose to share the news of her debilitating and devastating illness in a series of exclusive interviews for The Mirror in July 2023.

In the three-day series, she admitted she had spent years trying to convince herself her low mood and brain fog was caused by something else. - first, long covid and then the menopause. It was actually a menopause specialist who was ultimately the one to suggest they consult a neurologist.

Remember When: My Life With Alzheimer's by Fiona Phillips, (Macmillan), is released on July 17

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