The long running queen of ITV Daytime is back on her comfy chair…
Today on Lorraine, Lorraine Kelly made her return to screens having recently undergone surgery to remove her fallopian tubes and ovaries. Joined live by the show’s resident GP Dr Hilary, Lorraine kicked off today’s programme opening up about her recent experience as Dr Hilary said: “Particularly good to see you because you’ve been off for a couple of weeks under the surgeon’s knife.”
Lorraine replied: “I have indeed, well, kind of, because it was keyhole, keyhole surgery is astonishing isn’t it.” Dr Hilary went onto say: “Well, you and I have broken quite a few taboos talking about health over the years. Do you remember, you talked about the menopause very openly.” To which Lorraine replied: “I do because I couldn’t get anybody to talk about it so you ended up interviewing me and we swapped places.”
Dr Hilary then informed Lorraine that they would be conducting the current conversation in different seats as he said: “We’re going to swap places right now because I want to know all about your operation, you’re going to be interviewed.”
Sat comfortably on opposite sides of the set they are usually seated in, Dr Hilary asked Lorraine: “So tell me, what operation did you have.”
Lorraine went on to explain to Dr Hilary and her viewers at home: “Well, it was keyhole surgery to get rid of my ovaries and fallopian tubes, keyhole is amazing, I’ve got three new holes in my body which are fantastic, all healing beautifully.”
Dr Hilary asked: “So very uninvasive really?” Lorraine went onto say: “Really incredible, absolutely incredible, I was looked after so so well, the team were great. That’s the only thing, I’m not allowed to lift Billie for another couple of weeks.”
“Mr Raafat (Lorraine’s surgeon) was holding Billie and I said ‘when can I lift her up?’ and Billie is a substantial child, you know, she’s proper’ so he said ‘I’d give it to the end of the month for that’.”
Discussing her reasons for having undergone the procedure, Lorraine explained: “What happened was, do you remember I told you back in January, I was coming back from India and on the flight I had terrible, terrible pain. It was a cyst that had burst, an ovarian cyst that had burst. There was a bit of bleeding and when I say discomfort, you know I’m stoic but it was horrible.”
“I went to see Mr Raafat, we had a scan and did all of that and he said on the other side there is an ovary that looks a bit dodgy, best to just take it out, best to just get rid of it.”
Dr Hiary went on to explain: “Ovarian cysts, now there are various types of ovarian cysts, there are functional ones that you get before the menopause when you release the egg, sometimes that follicle can get full of fluid, it refills with fluid. After the menopause, those cysts can, usually they are benign, we call them cystadenomas, cysts arising from ovarian tissue which can again, become quite large.”
“Although they are usually benign, they have the potential to turn malignant so as a precautionary measure sometimes it’s useful to just remove the ovaries and fallopian tubes as well.”
Lorraine continued: “After surgery it can affect you in so many ways, emotional ways.” Dr Hilary then added: “I wanted to ask you about that, because many women either going through a hysterectomy or removing their ovaries, may feel emotional impact and they think am I less of a woman, is this going to affect me in any other way, did you have any feelings like that?”
Lorraine shared her experience as she said: “Not really, I think because of my age, you know I’m nearly 66, obviously that ship has sailed a long time ago having babies but the only thing is, Mr Raafat said I might have to take tiny, tiny, amounts of testosterone very controlled just to get the balance right.”
Asked by Dr Hilary if the removal of her ovaries doesn’t bother her, Lorraine assured him: “No it’s relief really, pathology came back and everything is fine, everything is ok, nothing sinister at all, it’s very reassuring but like you say, it’s preventative and it means it’s one less worry. For me, it was actually an amazing thing to do and the right thing to do. I would say to anybody if you’re worried, make sure that you go and get yourself checked out.”
ITV Daytime also noted the success of Lorraine in recent months stating, ‘Lorraine has experienced a succession of record breaking months with February, March and April of this year each amassing the highest ratings for the programme in four years.’ The figures given are contradictory however noting ‘Lorraine reaches 1.1M people every day and 2.7M people every week.’ The daily seems to be a ‘peak’ rating as this does not add up to 2.7m a week, which is the more accurate figure. The programme usually pulls in around 540,000 average, which is half of what Morning Live is drawing on BBC One.
“Lorraine has had half term, two weeks at Easter and then her hospital time off, so well done to Christine and Ranvir who probably have hosted half of those rating booming three months” – TV Critic Vivian Summers
Lorraine weekdays from 9am on ITV1, ITVX, STV & STV Player
