EastEnders star Cheryl Fergison has said she is now able to walk with a stick for a moderate distance after suffering a stroke earlier this year.
The 60-year-old actor, who played Heather Trott on the BBC soap, was struck down with the illness in May, which left her unable to walk or talk.
Four months on from the health scare, Fergison told her fans on social media: “I can walk with a stick now from the stroke, which is brilliant. I can walk a certain amount of way before I get puffed out.”
Fergison said she can now walk as far as her local corner shop, where she recently came across a fan who told her to adapt her memoir Behind the Scenes into a film or TV series.
The actor said the woman told her she’d been unable to put her memoir down and told her to consider turning her colourful life into a movie or series, which she’d “never thought of” before.
Urging production companies to get involved, Fergison said: “Let’s [get] Behind the Scenes by Cheryl Fergsion in front of the camera for something for you lot to watch.”
Fergison’s stroke was diagnosed by her son Alex, who works with elderly people and recognised the symptoms.
After being rushed to hospital in Blackpool, she underwent recovery to “retrain” her brain to coordinate her hands, balance and walk. “It’s frustrating and makes you angry,” the actor said of the process.
Fergison played the hapless Heather on EastEnders from 2007 to 2012. Her other credits include Little Britain, The IT Crowd and Doctor Who, in which she appeared in two episodes starring Christopher Eccleston.
Her stroke came after undergoing surgery for womb cancer in 2015, for which the late Barbara Windsor, who played Peggy Mitchell on EastEnders paid her medical bills and living expenses.
Fergison reflected: “I just remember, just weeping, and you have people like this and people don’t know the generosity of people and what they do, it’s amazing. I’m forever grateful.”
The actor had been singing in Chinese restaurants and performing in pantomimes to make ends meet and was taken to a food bank by Citizens Advice after she was left unable to afford her supermarket shop.
“It was shameful,” she said. “How could I have been earning that much and now I am here?”
