Brian Kennedy – ‘Dancing with the Scars’

0:00Coming up on this episode of the Mario Rosenstock podcast. I met a lovely woman you'll love this Mario quite an older lady and she came to the gig then while all this was going on and she said to me I have a bag as well and I said well done how's it going and she goes well when I was getting the surgery the surgeon leaned over and said now when you wake up you're going to have a colostomy bag how do you feel just before we put her under so I thought it was a lovely thing to do and she said I took a moment and I said to him well if it's good enough for Brian Kennedy it's good enough for me oh that's a brilliant thing to take away I just thought to myself wow

0:40As part of my work for Gift Grub, I have to watch Dancing with the Stars for two hours every week. I wasn't previously a massive fan of it, but actually now in these dark days of all the sort of darkness politically around the world, it is a good little vehicle to switch off to. It's light, it's fluffy, it's family entertainment. it's full of colour and it just is kind of you know it's just it's silly and it's fun and it's really nice to switch off but recently I'm watching an episode of Dancing with the Stars I noticed the singer Brian Kennedy on the show and I don't know for some reason maybe it's my age maybe it's just having gotten a little bit older and realising how important you know your health in your life is and just seeing how stricken he was with bad health down through the years in the last 10 years specifically.

1:32And I watched him dance on a live show with a colostomy bag and a eurostomy bag and on live TV, completely out of his comfort zone and doing it with this and not mentioning it really, getting on with it, just showing what I would call true resilience. And maybe 10 years ago, I wouldn't have remarked about it, but I just thought it was quite extraordinary. One of those, just a person getting on with their life, but under exceedingly difficult, awkward, potentially embarrassing circumstances. And he just went through it and didn't make a fuss and just got on with it. And it was the not making a fuss that I think that made it register with me so much.

2:17And that's why I asked Patrick, our producer, if he'd asked Brian to come on the podcast and talk to me generally about that and about everything in his life. because he's had an incredible life story, raised on the Falls Road in Belfast at the height of the Troubles. Brian had a difficult, even traumatic childhood, but he went on to forge a hugely successful music career, performing in Madison Square Gardens with legends like Van Morrison. He's represented Ireland at the Eurovision. He sang at George Best's funeral and was a coach on The Voice of Ireland. Brian's also a very naughty, mischievous storyteller.

2:51He's got a really dark sense of humour, as I've noticed a lot of people from Belfast have, and for obvious reasons, they have a wicked sense of humour. And Brian is just great fun to be around. And we stayed chatting after the podcast, after the microphones went off. We stayed chatting for 15, 20 minutes about all sorts of stuff that I can't go into right here. But listen, you're about to hear a really, really good chat between somebody, me, who admires this person for the way he's been getting on with his life in the face of very, very adverse circumstances for so long. I'd started to stagger at this point, and I got up to the window, and I just said, there's something wrong with my chest, I don't know what.

3:32They got me in, they got me hooked up quite quickly, and then she just suddenly closed the curtains and came back. She said, you're having a massive heart attack. And then that changed everything. It was like a sliding doors moment. The next day, I woke up in ICU, and it was a lovely, I think he was maybe from the Philippines, and he goes, oh, Brian, Brian, you're a vision, you're a vision, right? and this woman was kind of down for me a bit she goes why does he keep saying that you're a vision look at the state of us I was going no he means the Eurovision you're not a vision I know I'm not a vision I mean can you imagine this happening to you he goes what's the first few lines of your biography I just went oh Jesus okay and I said well the first couple of lines are the first time I ever saw the word singer was on my mother's sewing machine and he goes that's really good shame I've seen you extraordinary my full chat with Brian Kennedy coming right up But last week's podcast with Owen McGee, Owen was doing the rounds and giving financial advice to everybody with his new book.

4:26And of course, it stimulated the Mario Rosenstock hotlines to start flowing with financial advice from various luminaries from the world of politics and even, well, high finance itself. Bertie Ahern. Well, over the years as Minister for Finance and whatnot, I built up a wealth of financial wisdom, which I then used to form a solid strategy for achieving monetary independence for myself. It was built about two core principles. Now, this could get quite technical, so bear with me. Those principles were, one, dig outs, and two, flutters. So the dig out aspect of it, the lads would organise a footprint for me in Fagans or the Cat and Cage or over in Home Farm, the bar over there.

5:21And I'd put that then on the 3-1-on favourite in Chapstow or Hackney or Walthamstow. And hey presto, financial independence. Now I had to do a little explaining around that in a yoga a few years later, but it's absolutely kosher. Former President Michael D. Higgins. How does one achieve financial independence, yes. I recommend securing long-term employment that comes, for example, with a large mansion, severed staff, a driver, an aide-de-camp, and free food. You don't have to put your hand in your pocket at all for up to 14 years. And so, when you wrap things up, you've got a Henry the Hippo sized account stuffed with cash for splurging on poetry books and flights to the Guggenheim and the like.

6:09Donald J. Trump. It's easy. You get a lot of people to do some very hard, very high value work for you. Then you refuse to pay them. Simply don't pay them. I won't get into the nitty gritty of the details. It's too complex. But ultimately, what that means is that money that should be in their account does not leave your account ever. And so the transactional balance stays in your favor. You win, they lose. Everyone's happy. well everyone that matters

6:47okay so exclusive comedy every week on the Mario Rosenstock podcast and you can contact me of course for anything Mario Rosenstock at gmail.com you can contact me to tell me what you think of the podcast suggestions for guests for the podcast suggestions for sketches suggestions for new characters if you think that there's a character out there that I'm missing and that you'd like to see me do on the radio. I'm live on stage in the Mollingar Arts Centre on the 21st of February and live in the Black Box in Galway on the 28th of February and 7th of March in Limetree Theatre in Limerick and I think it's the 17th of April in Dean Crow Theatre in Athlone.

7:32The first three are almost sold out. Actually, the first one is sold out and the second two are almost sold out, Galway and Limerick but please get a ticket if you'd like to come and see me live I believe I guarantee you you will not regret your decision So let's cross over to the Go Loud studio where the talented, funny and seriously mischievous Brian Kennedy is ready and waiting to talk to me. Enjoy So Brian I used to not really watch Dancing with the Stars because you're kind of committing two hours of your life on a Sunday But then I started doing impressions of the judges on Dancing with the Stars right so then I'd have to Who are you good at?

8:09So I imagined that Brian Redmond I see him as a kind of a trade union guy so it's like no under the regulatory capacity of the immunity and the facilitatory demonstrations that you are done very well but but I would say let me start by saying this all that sort of stuff and then Karen Byrne came and was like like it I love it like give over I love her she's so good give over go on stay of you oh Philip them hip trusts you're staying Brian go away the hairs on me arms stood up they did she is a catchphrase machine I love her from inner city Dublin yeah she is and then Arthur who won't stop screaming I know God love him and he takes you a minute to go what did you just say Arthur oh yeah got it and why do you go from zero he's like a car that goes from zero to 80 without any reason he is do you know what I love about you I'm sorry Did you have a fit?

9:07Well, what you've just described is three very definite formats there. You know what I mean? And then, of course, we had, I mean, Oti. Nobody could take their eyes off Oti. Yeah. Even, especially the gay men, all backstage going, look at Oti, she's gorgeous. Yeah. Oh, my God. She's such a beautiful woman. Okay. Up close. So she radiates beauty. Good God. She's just an Amazonian queen. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So anyway, so that's bringing... So you watch Dancing with the Stars. And now I'm kind of... Okay. Now I'm kind of into it. And the reason I'm into it is because there's less and less nowadays that you can call on TV switch off family telly.

9:41Yeah. Right? Yeah. And as a person who is consumed by politics and Trump and the darkness and the negativity and Irish politics and then UK politics, this is an escape. And it's a welcome. I think I said it one of the weeks. I just said the same thing. Look, if all we do is get people, whatever version of family you have, guarded around the TV, you've all got your snacks and your thing and you can all just drop your shoulders for a couple of hours, then job done. And it's bright and colourful. Yeah. I mean, literally. I'm an adult. I'm in my 50s, but literally watching bright colours on TV is still a nice thing.

10:15I have blue hair one week. Yeah, it's still a... Completely blue hair. It's fun. Yeah. It's fun. It is. I mean, I didn't know who Poddy was. In fact, I made kind of a funny mistake because I'd never seen those programmes. So when they said that he'd spent 30 years in the prison service, I thought he'd committed a crime. Right? so I was like so I said to him one day so did you murder somebody like what happened but not only this poor old Brian Kennedy he's like he spent 30 years in the prison service but he also spent like a whole year as a traitor yeah what the fuck is a traitor exactly right and I was thinking and I remember when Brian was saying to me about it he didn't think I didn't march very well and I was like Brian I grew up in West Belfast do you think I don't know what a march looks like are you mental but you know it was such I loved it it was such fun sorry to go three weeks later yeah and so so then you left and dancing with the girls well I didn't leave I was voted out You were voted out Let's tell the truth And And then I I got onto my producer Patrick and I went I've had to watch Dancing with the Stars But I kind of now Like it now Yeah Would you do it?

11:11I would not Why? It's not my style I think I think I think You can work it out Yeah If you're up for that or not Yeah that's true That's true And I'm not up for it I was absolutely It was good timing this time They asked me one time before Yeah And I couldn't Because Jeremy was always so busy For me at weekends But this time it was just a different story and I thought I'm actually ready now because I'd had like I said on the program I had to get a letter from cardiology to say I wouldn't drop dead I had to get blessings from all kinds of you know medical people and I did so it was worth it even for just doing that to go do a stress test the most stressful thing about a stress test I will tell you Mario is trying to get a stress test that is the most stressful part of it but then you get it and I've just knocked it out of the park it was all good so then so let me tell you why then so I rang Patrick and I said try and ask Brian if you'll come on and uh and he went of course yeah why I mean we've talked to him you've talked to him before yeah is there anything else to know about that man yeah I know everything about you that's that's kind of you think you do no on your public sort of you know wikipedia level sort of stuff I know yeah I call it I know your your rough back history do you know what I mean yeah um but Brian I have to say I was really um I was really kind of taken and I was taken by your sheer, what I would just call normal, everyday fucking human bravery.

12:32Everybody was just treating you like a normal contestant and you were. Yeah. And I was going, he's not a normal contestant. I know. This is completely bananas. This is live television. Just to my listeners, we can go into this, but this is live television. This is a man who recovered from very, very serious cancer, was not able to walk. Then he had a massive cardiac arrest, a heart attack. Then he had a quadruple bypass. This person has had, like his brother Bap died of also cancer in 2016, around the time he was diagnosed with cancer. Same time, exactly. And you are, and then really most touchingly of all, you were wearing a colostomy bag.

13:15And a urostomy bag, two bags. While dancing on live television. Yes. not only that there was one night towards the end where we literally had about three minutes to go to air live and suddenly my Eurostomy bike filled up with pee so I had to find a cup backstage May I ask you sorry a gross question here when it fills up with pee is that you deliberately peeing No you've no control at all Oh my god No control over poo or pee Oh god They take all that power away from you That's a surprise of you I'm peeing right now I am as well but I have no back Exactly There's a silver lining to every story No, it just has a It's a muscle that works on its own So at some point I'll go Oh, that's kind of half full I might do something with that Brian, this is all sorts of madness It's madness So I have to get the lovely James Let me explain what I mean by madness Go on Jump in It's madness because you are Brian Kennedy You are a performer You are in a business Which is notoriously narcissistic And vain Concerned with their appearance They appear on television all the time They are public people And you have made it public About a colostomy bag And I was just going, this is fucking messing my head in a really good way.

14:23And I just was blown away by you. And, you know, okay, I'm 55 years of age. And it's funny kind of things that make you slightly emotional. And I became slightly emotional watching you. Just watching you being normal. Watching you being ordinary. I felt very emotional. Watching you being resilient. Yeah, yeah. It was fucking amazing. See, I'm not too aware of that because when you're in the middle of the dancing, you just really are, okay, now, don't mess this up and get the steps right. We've been rehearsing four hours every day. So I don't want to let James down. I don't want to let myself down.

14:51I'm aware it's live TV. Cameras don't faze me at all. Thank God. The live audience is the best part about it because you rehearse on your own. And then all of a sudden, you're out there doing it for real in front of loads of people live. So it's like a gig and a live TV broadcast in the same breath. And as you say, I just give them a wee tap and go, is everybody okay down there? Yeah, great. But there was one week, like I said, the thing just filled up. What happens then? I found a cup backstage. I quickly got James, my pro dancer, to hold it. I whipped the bag out, filled the cup up nearly to the top with pee.

15:21Your partner, that's a partner. Yeah, yeah. Clipped it back again. I said, James, you're about to just see something now that you've probably never seen before. Yeah. And then we put the cup over somewhere safely. Hopefully nobody thought, oh, there's a lovely big glass of water there, I'll have that. Wine. Yeah, wine. Because it was kind of yellow, that's right. And then we literally were like, okay, one minute to go and then we were on. Yeah. So what I wanted to happen from all of that was to say to people down the lens, look what I'm doing. Or something going on with you. That's what I'm taking from it.

15:48You know what I mean? It's inspiring. Get on with it. It's real resilience. Yeah. It's real resilience. It's real bravery. Yeah. I met a lovely woman. You'll love this, Mario. Quite an older lady. And she came to the gig then while all this was going on. And she said to me, I have a bag as well. And I said, well done. How's it going? And she goes, well, when I was getting the surgery, the surgeon leaned over and said, now, when you wake up, you're going to have a colostomy bag. How do you feel? Just before we put her under. So I thought it was a lovely thing to do. and she said she said I took a moment and I said to him well if it's good enough for Brian Kennedy it's good enough for me Oh that's a brilliant thing to take away I just thought to myself wow Yeah I couldn't believe I would have that impact on somebody So corollary to that is Yeah Knowing this information about you seeing it on live television and seeing you dealing with it in such a kind of a non a non self pitying way Yeah yeah yeah You know this is another thing I liked about you you didn't attract one iota of pity No.

16:45You didn't. You didn't. You didn't play it. No, it's not helpful. I know it's not helpful, but you didn't play it. I suppose having gone through it, you know it better than anybody else. So why would you play it? It's people who don't go through it that kind of play it. Or people, they don't know what to do because they look at you. They can't see the bag necessarily. You look okay. It's not like I've got a big scar on my face. So the bravery and the resilience and the everyday resilience and the getting on with it that you had was one thing that struck me. And then, of course, the other thing that struck me is this personal quality you have, which is your candor.

17:19Yeah. You're very candid as a person. It means that you have a quite naughty sense of humor. Yeah. And at times you're TMI. And not for me, but sometimes I go, somebody must be. You're saying what my friends all say. They're always like, did you have to tell me that? I'm like, sorry about that. But it's part of the package. With your package of candor comes TMI. You can't be utterly candid unless you give TMI sometimes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. But I was going, it's how candid you are, right? And I found that extraordinary. Now, so what came out of that? What came out of that was the candor of this person, the resilience of this person, and I knowing that they have, let's say, me as a member just watching, just punter watching, knowing that they have a eurostomy bag and a colostomy bag.

18:06It didn't change the way I saw you at all. No. And I think that is a great testament to you. So that this is where you won. You won because you have shown that in a business which is fickle and vain and narcissistic, you can say the most kind of revealing, grossy thing about yourself. and I don't see you in any way differently at all in fact I would see you as being raised in my eyes so I wondered were you worried about that that maybe by being candid about this that you go everybody's going to be grossed out of me and think I'm a freak or I was trying to milk it and go please vote for me because you know God love me and my two bags oh yeah I never got that either yeah so I really was slightly aware of that thing vote for two bags yeah yeah well I had the t-shirts ready from cancer to dancer backstage you know come on it was all ready to go but no they were good about it they let me talk about it when it felt right were they yeah yeah I talked about it on camera with Laura a couple of times and then actually the only reason I was disappointed not to get further was because we had a dedication week and I was going to dedicate it to my surgeon the cancer surgeon and the heart surgeon we were going to go and interview them and all that it was all going to sort of vaguely put together that would have been good but again maybe too much one of the notes I read that Patrick sent me was again very touching because correct me if I'm wrong here so So you had a quadruple bypass and the lady that stopped your heart.

19:28Yes. Tell me that one. So she called me the morning after the first show and I was not expecting. Suddenly up on my phone comes St. James's Hospital Cardiac. I'm like, oh, hello. I thought kind of somebody was going to tell me off. Honestly, I did. I became a child for half a second. I went, hello. She goes, Brian, it's Sarah Early, who was the surgeon, right? I went, Sarah, thinking, what's she got? She goes, I just had to ring you. I'm so proud of you. I went, what? I said, sir, I thought you were going to give out to me or something. She goes, well, truthfully, when they contacted me for a letter to sign you off to do this program, I initially said no because I hadn't seen your up-to-date.

20:04And the cardiologist, Ian Pearson, who's in charge of my cardiology journey, had said to her, look, we need to sign off on this. And she goes, oh, God, no. She goes, Brian, you had a massive heart attack. She goes, I'm not going to do anything other than tell you what happened. When you came to us, you had a massive heart attack. So it was touch and go for a while. and you know if you'd have made a good recovery we'd have been really delighted but she goes I just saw your recent because the stress test that I just did and the MRI normally you know I had a 30 % muscle heart muscle rate when I had the heart attack at home and I walked across to A &E from my house stumbling across this it was kind of a building site at that point you know the new hospital there where A &E is in St.

20:46James's and she said to me but I have to say hey, you've made a full recovery. It's just hard to believe. And she goes, and there you are, throwing yourself around that dance like you have no bother on you. She goes, I'm just, we're all just so knocked out and proud of you. And she goes, I'm just so glad to be able to get to say that to you. And I said to her, Sarah, you know that you're the only person that's had my heart in your hands. And she did exactly that. She started laughing. She goes, oh, you and your one-liners. And I said, oh, but it's true because as you say, she stopped my heart.

21:18They took the, you know, the veins all the way up there. See, this big, huge, long scar. Big, huge, long scar. Whoa. So they take all the veins from there and then reroute them around the heart. Yes, I am. Because, of course, they're not going to be rejected. They're already in my body. Yeah, yeah. So it's very, very clever. But you're slightly fucked if your veins aren't good. First thing she said to me was, let me see your legs. And I went, okay. And she goes, oh, yeah, your legs look okay. Good, good, good. So that's good. We don't have to worry about that. Yeah. Because sometimes people's legs aren't.

21:43Why did you have a heart attack? It's a good question. I certainly had a lot of damage. There's a school of thought that says that when you have the amount of chemo that I had, six months of chemo, that can damage your heart muscle. But it's not something that people really talk about because it doesn't always happen. And also, you don't want to scare people into not having the treatment either. So we don't know for sure. But what happened was I started every scan I had post-cancer to say that the cancer hadn't returned. they would say there's a bit of you know there's a wee bit of build up there in one of your main arteries but that's kind of normal don't worry about that so that had been flagged and then second time around again and then one morning I was in bed and I felt all of this bubbling stuff around where I thought my heart was You felt it?

22:28I felt it bubbling and I thought to myself that's not normal Nope So I went up to my GP immediately he wrote me a letter he said go to A &E now Yeah So I did They knew what that bubbling was Yeah and he went and they tested me and I remember in particular this lady saying to me I remember because she had a very particular accent and she said to me we're not worried about your heart at all. I went oh that's great and I'd been over a few times with chest pains with terrible stomach acid all kinds of things like that but they'd always sent me home with NXIVM or you're fine you're fine and even my cardiologist at the time not the new one now had said to me look we'll book you in for a big MOT but like in about five years.

23:03Two weeks later I had a massive heart attack in the house so your guess is as good as mine certainly i don't think the chemo helped i also don't think i'm caught between thinking well what did those boosters do in terms of you know the the covid boosters because i terrible covid yeah i caught covid later on in heart rehabilitation classes in james's that's where i caught covid and then the but the i did feel very unwell when i had a couple of the uh the boosters and everything but then i got better so there's again it's pointless trying to really guess we don't know yeah we just don't know yeah and also as do we what one thing we do know is that heart attacks can come very quickly can they they can they can just it's was there a history of heart in your family no i mean my granddad because it's very genetically predisposed well interestingly my granny had a colostomy bag you know and my dad had one for a while and got reversed so that is interesting but certainly the heart stuff i had a grandfather on my granddaughter kennedy my dad's dad who was you know a big smoker big drinker all of that died of a massive heart attack on christmas day and on all of that so so that did happen to us um but not really not heart stuff wasn't really my came from marathon runners you know fitness people yeah i came from that kind of family not smokers what's can you tell me what it's like to have a heart attack yeah try and tell try and pretend just well yeah no i can't remember nobody nobody not many people know what it's like Like, what is it like?

24:28Just tell me what happens during that day. So that day, I'd been up, the day before, I'd been filming in James's Hospital for a charity, bizarrely. Then I went up to Belfast to do another cancer charity thing. And then I drove back from Belfast, went to dinner at my friend's house. They don't drink, so I didn't drink. And I drove home again. And I felt a long, like a cylinder-shaped pain on my right side. So it was atypical. it wasn't what they tell you that happens at all Not on your right side? It is on your right side? No it's all on the left usually on your left arm Is it? They say the left Up into the jaw The left is where your heart is?

25:03It's more to the left It's actually more towards the middle And so they say you get things on your left do you? That's more typical But mine was completely atypical So when I described my symptoms they were like alright okay that sounds weird So I thought maybe it was cancer again or something because the pain was so intense suddenly And in fact The pain was a long pain? A long pain all down my right side in my chest but over towards the right side of the chest. What kind of pain? Dull? Oh no, very sore, very painful. Okay. But I'm kind of constant now. And stopping you walking or breathing properly?

25:33That happened eventually when I walked over. But I thought to myself, I mean, here's the scary part. It was Friday night, so during the night, but two in the morning into Saturday. And I thought James's Hospital A &E is going to be a nightmare because I'd been over a few times that year. And I thought, you know what? I'll take a sleeping tablet and get up tomorrow and do that if it's still sore. Thankfully, I didn't have a sleeping tablet in the house. You think you would have died? I might have. Oh, I might have died. Absolutely. So I took nothing and I'd lay down. And when I lay down, it got worse, the pain.

26:00So I got up, got my clothes on, walked over in the kind of blustery rain. Like I say, it was more of a building site at that point. So you're living beside the hospital? I'm living beside the hospital. So I walked across, big lumps of ground missing and lumps of rocks and everything. I'd started to stagger at this point. And I got up to the window and I just said, there's something wrong with my chest. I don't know what. They got me in. They got me hooked up quite quickly. and then the nurse was all oh how are you Brian and all because they've seen me before over there and they know me a wee bit and all that and then she just suddenly closed the curtains and came back and said you're having a massive heart attack she said she said and I thought yeah I am like it's really like oh god and then that changed everything it was like a sliding doors moment suddenly all the curtains closed I had to go off and be in a private room that brought me to a room they gave me all this stuff and she said look we have to wait till tomorrow morning this is now 3 in the morning have to wait till 7 to have an angiogram because that's when they do them.

26:51And so I had an angiogram that morning and then it was like, okay, your heart muscle's at 30%. That's not good. And then the rest took over and then Sarah kept me in for a couple of days and then she said, okay, we have a plan. Quadruple bypass. Your heart muscle's up to 40 now so we can do something. How did they get it up to 40? It just did it itself with the medication as well. She goes, if it doesn't come back by itself, you're screwed. Just the stress was out of it. So she said to me, you took an awful bang on your heart there. I remember thinking, yeah, it felt like a bang. It felt like somebody had really kicked me hard in the chest and like I say she then booked me in for the quadruple bypass she said when you wake up tomorrow you've got to feel like you've been hit by not one but two buses and my god was she right really oh god I woke up the next day it was kind of hilarious is it like you've been beaten up worse I've been beaten up I know how that feels you know way worse than that oh yeah as a kid beaten up oh beaten up badly oh yeah yeah yeah yeah my family members too no way oh yeah beaten up badly oh yeah yeah like kicked unconscious at school.

27:50I was knock-knock conscious at school. Yeah. But the next day, I woke up in ICU. And it was a lovely, I think he was maybe from the Philippines. And he goes, oh, Brian, Brian, you're a vision, you're a vision, right? And this woman was kind of down from me a bit. She goes, why does he keep saying that you're a vision? Look at the state of us. I was going, no, he means the Eurovision. You're not a vision. I'm not a vision. I know I'm not a vision. Oh, man, it was so funny. But he was such a sweetheart. He really cheered me up. Yeah. And then I only had to spend a day. You felt like what? You felt like taped by two muscles?

28:18I felt like two muscles were on top of my chest pressing down. Okay. And it was really sore and I had all the stitches here. Yeah. And when I tried to walk I couldn't again so I had to learn to walk again because for the muscles to atrophy that quickly is really terrifying. For your leg muscles and everything? Yeah, yeah. So your body muscles. Something dropped weight. You're in bed for two weeks and your muscles start... They completely atrophy. And then even to get up to go to the loo and then they brought, by mistake, they brought me a child's colostomy bag. and eurostomy bag, a child's one, so way too small.

28:49And so I kept saying to them, this is big enough. I'm going to wet myself. I'm going to wet the bed. But I will say one thing. When I had the cancer treatment, I was in a private part on my own in a room, right? For the heart attack, I was in the public ward. I much preferred the public ward because one time in the private room, I dropped the buzzer, and I couldn't literally get it off the floor. And I was in terrible pain for a couple of hours, and nobody came to see me until two hours later and I was lying there going and she's like oh Jesus Brian I'm so sorry we didn't look out on you if you're in pain in a public ward you just go excuse me and somebody goes a nurse nurse he's in pain and then there was actually a wee bit of crack going on too yes it was an old fella kind of singing songs and everything and all that if you're in the mood for it I know what you mean and so that was I felt actually much better I know in a public ward because it's the same doctors yeah but it's just loads more people around yeah and sure a few people I can see the point I could see the point.