Broadcaster Ronan Collins has said that he feared the worst when he suffered a health scare that left him with temporary paralysis.
The RTÉ Radio 1 host lost the power in one of his legs as he was getting ready to present an event earlier this year and was rushed to hospital in the middle of the night, where doctors quickly discovered he was in need of emergency surgery on his spine.
His story is captured in the upcoming RTÉ2 series Trauma and speaking on Friday's Late Late Show, Collins said: "It was all pretty positive because you're surrounded by positive people although they admitted they didn't know what it was until eventually I had an MRI scan which revealed this cyst on my spinal cord . . .
Broadcaster Ronan Collins on his reaction to the frightening news that he needed emergency surgery to prevent permanent paralysis #latelate pic.twitter.com/jTk2IZmphv
— The Late Late Show (@RTELateLateShow) October 6, 2017
"That was scary because you don't believe them when they say it's a cyst - you always think it's going to be something worse.
"Is it going to be a tumour? Is this the end . . . ? But I sorted it out very quickly in my head. I said it's not going to be the end, there's no point in giving into it. I'm surrounded by positive people and they reckon they can do something with it. Yes there's a chance it mightn't work but which chance to do you take?
"I had the operation. There was no pain at all. It was a paralysis and that was scary because I have two grandchildren now and that was the scariest part, I'm not going to be able to chase around after them . . . " he continued.
"They needed to do the operation in ten to 12 hours because if the paralysis persisted much longer than that they wouldn't be able to reverse it."
