Daily Telegraph article. Ray Meagher (Alf) is recovering from triple bypass heart surgery:
Home And Away star Ray Meagher’s triple bypass heart surgery shock.
He’s always had a good heart. But Home And Away’s loveable larrikin, Ray Meagher has revealed he recently had to have emergency bypass surgery.
Exclusive: The last time Alf Stewart battled a “dodgy ticker” on Seven’s Home And Away, it was 2018 and he was “down a sinkhole that had exploded near the [Summer Bay] school.”
For Ray Meagher, the actor who plays Australia’s favourite TV larrikin and soap survivor, his very real heart shock came just a week ago, when a routine health check led to emergency triple bypass surgery.
The 75-year-old had been preparing to spend an extended winter production break from the award-winning soap driving to Queenland for a Sunshine Coast holiday with wife, Gilly, when an appointment with his cardiologist just days before revealed three serious blockages in his arteries requiring immediate intervention.
Now resting comfortably at his Sydney home, Meagher told News Corp Australia he was “very, very lucky” to have kept up his heart check and annual stress tests before getting behind the wheel.
“We were all packed up and ready to drive north, but if we had without seeing the cardiologist, well, you could have a heart attack at the wheel, you kill yourself, you kill your wife, or some other poor innocent people. It’s just horrific to think what could have happened,” he said, adding “I’m just glad to be on the planet.”
His doctor, Bill Petrellis and surgeon Ian Nicholson had initially thought a simple stent procedure was needed, but the extent of Meagher’s coronary calcification meant he was kept in overnight at Sydney Adventist Hospital and open heart surgery scheduled for the next day.
“One of the arteries was 100 per cent [blocked],” Meagher said, revealing his angiogram showed “there was a good chunk of solid white [calcification]”
Meagher had been vigilant about his own heart health, after tragically losing a friend to the disease last year.
“I did [stage musical] Priscilla, Queen Of the Desert in Brisbane a year ago and because I’m a Queenslander, I’d played a lot of rugby and caught up with a lot of old rugby mates. One of them wouldn’t have been the normal theatre but his wife dragged him along and we had coffee and a great yarn. Then two weeks later he was dead … massive heart attack. So this was a real shock.”
His good personal fitness has already helped in his recovery, with doctors restricting the actor to a regimen of daily walks and stretching exercises and producers giving him “all the time I need” to heal.
“The surgeon called in the night before they let me out of hospital [last Wednesday] and he said: “a bit of exercise and do all the right things and basically you should be better than before … you’ve got a bigger motor, working at full capacity, now.”
And if his TV alter ego can survive a series of heart attacks over 31 years of manning the diner and local bait shop, Meagher is confident he can too.
“Alf Stewart’s had so many heart attacks and things along the way and survived them all,” he said, “talk about life imitating art.”
Meagher’s health scare comes after The Heart Foundation and News Corp successfully lobbied the Federal Government to fund heart checks in its award-winning ‘Serial Killer’ and ‘Show Some Ticker’ campaigns.
More than 16,000 Australians have seen a GP for a heart check since the push, with Meagher adding his voice to the cause.
“I’m not quite rearing to go just yet but it comes back again to ‘please people, get checked,’” he said.
“It doesn’t take long and there’s so much to be gained by going to the doctor and finding out the truth about your health, so you can do something about it.”
And the Digital Spy article:
Home and Away legend Ray Meagher undergoes triple bypass surgery
The actor is now at home recovering.
https://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/hom...ypass-surgery/
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