“Ten days after the pain first appeared, we were in a taxi en route to the charity meeting. The pain in my abdomen had intensified that afternoon, and as we drew up to the gates of the building, I suddenly knew that I was about to pass out. I mumbled something to my husband about being in great pain, and then all went blank.
“The next thing I knew was his hand on the back of my neck, and his voice calling me from far away. The taxi driver had called an ambulance, and I was bundled in, by now in excruciating pain.
“The paramedic lay me down and pressed gently on my tummy. When she got to the bottom right-hand side I screamed. ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘appendice.’ ‘I hope not,’ she went on, ‘but perhaps.’ If it was appendicitis, why had it suddenly become so painful? Had it burst? If so, I knew that meant I was in mortal danger,” the newsreader recalled thinking.
Finally after enduring months of pain the star was told she was suffering from acute appendicitis, which had caused her appendix to become badly inflamed and an abscess to form. Chakrabarti was given emergency surgery to remove her appendix and spent the following eight days in hospital on powerful antibiotics.
