Therese Coffey: Ex-cabinet minister says she got here ‘near dying’ after stress triggered mind abscess
Former cupboard minister Therese Coffey has revealed how she got here “close to dying” after an abscess was found in her mind.
Ms Coffey, who has served within the cupboard in quite a lot of roles, attributed the abscess – a pus-filled swelling within the mind brought on by a bacterial an infection – to the stress of being a minister.
In an interview with the Sunday Times, Ms Coffey, 52, stated she “burnt the candle at both ends” whereas serving as setting minister in 2018.
The Tory MP, who served as health secretary under the brief tenure of Liz Truss, started to note she was feeling sick throughout a debate in that 12 months, saying that whereas she wasn’t slurring her phrases, she simply “wasn’t quite myself”.
She recalled how throughout a vote, she could not keep in mind precisely which flat she lived in and later started experiencing hallucinations.
It was solely when her sister, Clare, phoned the hospital that Ms Coffey went in for a scan, which found the abscess on her mind.
“By now I was starting to slur my words and repeat myself,” she instructed the newspaper. “She said she had never known me the way I was, and they told me to go straight in.”
She revealed how within the aftermath of the surgical procedure, she needed to work on rebuilding her reminiscence and that she typically forgets the phrases for issues.
“I couldn’t remember the words for certain things,” she stated.
“I can remember thinking… I can’t remember what these thing are. It was slippers, and it still happens now. It’s like my brain had locked itself and then if I said a word again, it would come back again.”
Ms Coffey has served in varied cupboard roles since 2019 however this 12 months she resigned from her function as setting secretary and was changed by Steve Barclay in Rishi Sunak’s most recent reshuffle.
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Ms Coffey stated that whereas she usually enjoys “pressure”, she realised that she “just overdid it and burnt the candle at both ends”.
Now she says she typically takes a “power nap” to “recharge the batteries”.
She added: “I do value life more now than ever.
“I got here near dying, and I feel wanting again that if my sister hadn’t phoned St Thomas’ [Hospital] they usually hadn’t completed that scan, I most likely would have been useless in a matter of days.
“It gives you a different outlook on life and it’s not me trying to be a depressive Catholic on this, but the truth is this could all stop tomorrow.”