TV personality and actor Christopher Biggins has shared his experience of undergoing a life-saving ‘pig valve’ heart surgery, which he believes saved his life.
In an exclusive chat with the Daily Express, the beloved Porridge actor disclosed: “I am 76 and I’ve had a new valve put into my heart. A pigs valve.” With his characteristic wit, he quipped: “I occasionally snort.”
Reflecting on his health battles over the years, the I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! veteran acknowledged that it’s somewhat miraculous he’s still around. Biggins also opened up about his private fight with skin cancer, adopting a resilient stance with the words “you just have to go on”, and happily reported that he has since recovered from the melanoma.
Elaborating on his heart condition, he said: “My pig’s heart is fantastic. You can either have a plastic one or a pigs one and I went for the pigs one. It was about three years ago and I’ve just had my check up and its all A1. It’s a marvellous operation.”
The procedure was so fraught with danger that Christopher confessed he downplayed the severity to his long-term partner Neil, telling him he was merely getting a stent to avoid causing him undue stress.
Christopher opened up about his major heart surgery, explaining the intensity of the procedure: “They actually take the heart out of your body and it sits next to you when you are lying on the operating theatre. It’s a major operation but luckily I had wonderful doctors and they were terrific. It’s worked out brilliantly. It saves people and makes you live longer. So we have to blame the doctors and surgeons who are keeping us all alive. I take a drug and that’s it.”
Despite his gratitude for the life-saving surgery, Christopher said he has no desire to reach a centenarian age, saying: “You just have to go on but the trouble is we are all living far too long. But I saw the other day Bear Grylls was saying he would like to live to 200 and I thought ‘God, the thought of living to 100 is bad enough, not 200’. Stupid man. But I don’t want to go on and on and on.”
He also shared his aversion to the idea of being cryogenically frozen, adding: “The thought of people freezing me and waking me up in a thousand years time sends heeby jeebies down me. I couldn’t think of anything worse. You wouldn’t have any of your friends or family. It would be like being reborn. I would hate it.”
Reflecting on the recent loss of actor Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa, Christopher expressed his own wishes regarding death: “All I want from death – and I’m not frightened of it – is to go to sleep and never wake up. It’s something I really believe in.”