Shirley Ballas said she doesn’t want anyone else to witness the “scary” condition her mum suffers with. The head judge’s mum, Audrey, was diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a group of lung conditions that cause breathing difficulties, in 2022.
Shirley regularly devotes her voice to raising awareness on the condition as she told BBC Breakfast today: “I don’t want anyone to witness the things I’ve witnessed, when you sit opposite somebody who’s choking and cannot open the airways to breathe, it’s really, really quite scary.”
The dancer from Wallasey explained her mum had smoked since childhood and had been “suffering for many years” before her diagnosis. After her mum’s diagnosis, she now works with pharmaceutical company Sanofi’s Breathe Equal campaign to raise awareness of issues relating to respiratory conditions.
She added: “I’ve witnessed a choking, I’ve been out with her when she’s out of breath, and of course, she lives with me, and it’s… it’s quite sad, it’s debilitating, and also it’s never going to get any better.
“So it’s about finding a way to help her care for that, and, of course, keeping us safe from any of the flus that are going around. I’d also like to see that in certain deprived areas that everybody you know has that opportunity to be able to get care…
“I just want to get that word out generally to everybody, if you’re feeling unwell, or coughing or not feeling the best, to go and try to see the doctor and get diagnosed.”
The NHS says COPD can present itself as emphysema, damage to the air sacs in the lungs, and chronic bronchitis, long-term inflammation of the airways. It says COPD is a common condition that mainly affects middle-aged or older people who smoke, with many sufferers not realising they have it.
Shirley spoke to the ECHO in an exclusive interview last year about her mum’s battle. COPD is the third biggest killer in the UK and Shirley said the condition particularly weighs on her mind as her family has a history with respiratory issues. She added: “[My nan] literally dropped dead just from an asthma attack. She’d gone into the garage because she was embarrassed.
“She didn’t want to tell her husband or her sister-in-law that she was feeling unwell and she literally just died.” Shirley will always be scarred by the loss and revealed a tragic turn of fate as her grandad was on an oxygen tank at the time due to his own respiratory illness. Shirley said it will always stick with her how this would have been able to save her nan if she hadn’t felt the stigma attached to a public coughing fit.
She told the ECHO: “If she would have spoken up, there was an oxygen machine right there. She could have got some oxygen, so I always have that in the back of my mind about my nan and I don’t want that to happen to my mum.”
Shirley’s mum is in her late 80s and has had trouble coming to terms with her diagnosis as she still insists on maintaining her own independence and doing all the household chores. Shirley laughed the two bicker as she is overprotective of her mum’s welfare.
She said: “In the morning she goes down for a puff of her cigarette and I get paranoid if she doesn’t pick up her phone because I wonder what on Earth’s going on. Particularly now that she’s not well as we go into the winter months.
“I’ve got this paranoia about whether she’s going to become breathless when I’m not there. I’m just so nervous that something will happen on my watch if I’m not vigilant to be following up on it all the time. She basically tells me to whatnot off and stop fussing.”