Cougar and Proud!

After years of bad health, I’m making up for lost time

- Emmie Harrison/Judy Broadbent

As I was queuing at the till, the shop assistant smiled at me. 

‘When are you due?’ she asked. ‘I’m not pregnant,’ I muttered, red-faced with embarrassment. 

Mortifying. 

I certainly looked pregnant. 

A few months earlier, I’d been diagnosed with a fibroid – a benign growth in the womb. It was the cause of the heavy periods that’d been plaguing me for years.

It’d been picked up while I was having an ultrasound for an ongoing kidney condition.

‘You can have a hysterectomy,’ my doctor had said, ‘or wait until the menopause, when it should die on its own.’ 

I’d chosen to leave it. 

My polycystic kidney disease had caused an aneurysm 10 years earlier.

I’d needed brain surgery, which had saved my life, but it’d taken its toll. It took me two years to recover, during which I lost my marriage as well as my confidence.

I’d put my full-time modelling to one side as well.

The operation had left my face lopsided, so I looked like I’d had a stroke, and I hated even leaving the house.

In time, my face returned to normal.I began looking after myself, going to the gym. With my life back on track, I couldn’t face more surgery.