DENISE DRYSDALE: ‘I’VE FINALLY GOT MY LIFE BACK!’

Our favourite Aussie TV treasure opens up about her year from hell and secret brain surgery

- Craig Bennett

As she welcomes Woman’s Day into her Gold Coast home, Denise Drysdale is not only jumping with joy but her irrepressible sense of humour is back with a vengeance!

It’s been a long time coming for Denise, 73, who, in her first interview since vanishing from the spotlight, opens about her harrowing health crisis and life-changing brain surgery. “It’s great to be laughing again. I haven’t really laughed in over a year – my life had become a nightmare of agonising pain and fear,” confesses the two-time TV WEEK Gold Logie winner.

For the past 13 months the usually upbeat star had been grappling with the immensely painful facial condition trigeminal neuralgia (TN).

In May 2021 “Ding Dong” experienced her first TN flare-up, something she says she’ll never forget. Describing the pain as “unbearable” and “searing”, Denise reveals it became so intense she struggled to breathe.

“It was like a white-hot lightning bolt that would shoot across my face. The tiniest thing set it off, like smiling, brushing your teeth or hair, or blowing your nose.”

The star says the agonising episodes became more excruciating and frequent, and she would experience around five attacks a day.

TEARS & TRIUMPHS

So bad did things become, Denise struggled to get up in the morning.

“I would inch myself up slowly, so as not to trigger it off. There were times I’d burst into tears, fearful of when it would next strike,” she says.