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Sir Billy Connolly has shared a health update, considering himself blessed to have made it to 81.
The legendary actor and musician is now happily enjoying his retirement in the US, which he’s spending drawing and fishing at his abode in the Florida Keys.
Sir Billy was first diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2013, which came shortly after he began forgetting his lines during performances.
With both his balance and memory starting to deteriorate, he suffered ‘a couple of serious falls’, leading to him walking with a stick and sometimes using a wheelchair.
In his latest update, which comes after his wife began dressing him each morning in a ‘radical’ life change, Sir Billy declares that he’s ‘not yet dead or broken.’
In his new book, The Accidental Artist, he reflects on his tumultuous life.
The former stand-up comedian took up art when he began drawing while bored inside a hotel room in Montreal, with his book featuring drawings completed by him over the last 12 years to illustrate his experiences.
From childhood trauma to alcohol addiction to his diagnosis, Sir Billy covers it all, but acknowledges life could’ve taken a very different course had he contracted an illness while working in the Glasgow shipyards as a youngster.
In the book, he writes: ‘I got diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and prostate cancer the same week. I got treated for the cancer, and now I seem to be ok.
‘The Parkinson’s just rumbles along, doing its thing. It bothered me for a while, but when I think about it, I suppose I’m lucky I didn’t get something worse because I was a welder.’
Sir Billy goes on to explain: ‘The diseases they talk about now due to welding weren’t known about when I was in the shipyards. They didn’t know about the hazards of asbestos. And men were always dying in accidents too.
‘I was in an accident myself. I fell off the ship into the Clyde, dropped 40 feet into three feet of water and broke my ankle.’
He declares: ‘I’m a lucky bugger. I survived a lot of s**t – much of it brought on by myself.
‘I probably shouldn’t have escaped, but I did. Maybe what doesn’t kill you f**ks you up for life but at least I’m still here. I’m fishing happily in Florida and I’m not yet dead or broken.’
Sir Billy also writes: ‘I once ran into the Geordie writer Ian La Frenais in Tramp nightclub in London. I was wearing my leather jodhpurs and a leather jacket, pink socks and mules.
‘He said, “You know what you look like?” I said, “What?” He said, “A welder who got away with it”.’
Sir Billy moved to Florida after previously living in New York, with doctors advising him to live in a warmer climate.
Despite the debilitating nature of his condition, the performer has maintained his humour, previously referring to Parkinson’s as ‘a thing I just have to put up with’.
What is Parkinson's disease?
As per the NHS, Parkinson’s disease is a condition in which parts of the brain become progressively damaged over many years.
The main symptoms of Parkinson’s disease are:
- stiff and inflexible muscles
- involuntary shaking of particular parts of the body (tremor)
- slow movement
Parkinson’s disease is caused by a loss of nerve cells in part of the brain called the substantia nigra. This leads to a reduction in a chemical called dopamine in the brain.
Even when discussing the morbid topic of death, he does so with jest, having also written about what he wants on his gravestone.
He said: ‘I was thinking I’d like, “Jesus Christ, is that the time already?” on mine, but my wife Pamela was shaky about it, so we settled on, “You’re standing on my balls!” in tiny wee writing.
‘As for me – I haven’t made up my mind about my burial place, but I’m thinking that instead of a headstone, a table on an island in Loch Lomond for fishermen to picnic on would be nice.’
Sir Billy retired officially in 2018 following a dazzling four-decade career in entertainment.
His health woes rendered him unable to keep doing what he loves as, in 2021, Sir Billy was gutted not to be able to play the banjo or yodel anymore.
‘It’s just a noise. I can’t yodel anymore. I can’t smoke cigars. It’s taken more and more of what I like – it’s kind of painful,’ he shared.
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