EastEnders star Cheryl Fergison has opened up about a debilitating stroke that left her “unable to pick up a penny”.
The actor, who played Heather Trott on the BBC soap, was struck down with the illness in May, which she described as “one of the lowest times in my life”.
Fergison, 59, said the stroke “rocked” her world after she was stripped of the ability to walk and talk, and shared her symptoms ahead of the release of her new memoir.
“One of the hardest things is to process what it does to you,” she told The Mirror. “One minute you’re walking, talking, going to the shops; the next your world is rocked. It’s shocking.”
Fergison said the stroke started ”with a really bad headache at the back of my head”.
“I went to bed but couldn’t settle. When I got up in the night to go to the bathroom, my balance completely went and I had to stop myself from falling over. My whole right side felt numb, heavy and tingly.”
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 was told she’d had a stroke, and has since had to “retrain” her brain in order to recover.
“You lose the ability to coordinate your hands, to walk properly, your balance is gone. It’s frustrating and makes you angry.
“But I’ve started to recover; I am coming on in leaps and bounds now.”
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 comes after undergoing surgery for womb cancer in 2015, which she spoke about publicly for the first time in April 2024.
“I kept it quiet for a long time because I had to process a lot of it,” she said on ITV panel show Loose Women.
“Also, in our profession, it’s difficult because if you’re not working, then you’re not earning any money. You have to keep working.”
The actor also said that she wanted to speak out to inspire women to listen to their bodies more, as her diagnosis could have been missed had she not pursued medical advice.
“I think the thing is, if I hadn’t acted on what was going on with me, I don’t feel like I would have been here today.”
Fergison also revealed she will be “forever grateful” to the late Barbara Windsor, who played Peggy Mitchell on EastEnders, as she paid for her medical bills.
“I went to the toilet and I’d explained everything was going on and I was going to have my operation very soon,” Fergison said.
“I came back and [Barbara Windsor’s husband] Scott was there with a chequebook and she went, ‘Right, how much are your bills then?’ and she literally wrote a cheque out to help me pay my bills and my mortgage.
“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.”
