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Wednesday, 13 December 2006

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Michelle Scott Lee: Heart fears nearly ruined my wedding

Liberty X star feared she’d have to have pacemaker

Your wedding is supposed to be one of the happiest events of your life, but Liberty X star Michelle Heaton feared that heart problems would force her to cancel her big day.

‘I’d been having heart trouble for a while, but just a week before the wedding I was told that I might need to have a pacemaker fitted,’ explains Michelle, 26. ‘There was no way I was going to cancel my wedding, but the doctors were worried and thought that if I didn’t have the operation there could be serious consequences.’

Michelle first worried that there might be something seriously wrong with her health in March this year, when she began suffering from dizzy spells and palpitations.

My blackouts were terrifying

‘I had to wear a heart monitor for a week and, after lots of tests, they found I had an extra heartbeat, which means that my heart speeds up for no reason,’ she says.

‘About a month before the wedding, it got worse. I fainted a few times and had blackouts, which were really frightening – especially when I was told they can lead to death.’

Things came to a head when, after three blackouts, Michelle suffered one behind the wheel of her car.

‘You can feel them coming on, so luckily I knew to pull over, but it was very scary,’ she says. ‘It feels like the walls are closing in on you and everything goes really quiet. You can also actually feel your heart slowing down.’

Doctors wondered if the pressures of organising her wedding to fiancé Andy Scott-Lee, 26, were causing Michelle’s problems. ‘I’ve always been healthy and there’s no history of heart disease in my family, so it might be down to stress,’ she says.

‘I had an MRI scan, but when it still wasn’t clear why the blackouts were happening, I was warned that I might need to have a pacemaker fitted.’ Although thousands of people with pacemakers lead normal lives, Michelle admits that she was scared by the thought of having an operation.

‘It’s a minor procedure, but you have a scar on your chest for the rest of your life,’ she says. ‘The batteries have to be changed every 10 years and there can be a risk of infection during the operation.’

I feel much better since our wedding

While Michelle says cancelling her wedding was never an option, the honeymoon was definitely in jeopardy. ‘If I’d been fitted with a pacemaker, I wouldn’t have been able to fly,’ she says. ‘Fortunately, because I didn’t have another episode, it meant that we could go away. But the island we were staying on didn’t have a doctor, so I was quite stressed about us being in the middle of nowhere.’

Her health is OK at the moment, but it’s something Michelle will have to keep her eye on for the rest of her life.

‘I haven’t had any problems since the wedding, but if it happens again, a pacemaker is still a very real option,’ she says. ‘I’m usually quite intense, so I’m trying not to get stressed about little things – but organising a wedding meant I didn’t have much choice! I’m pleased I’m feeling so much better now. I just hope it stays that way.'

Karen Dunn