Comedian Jason Byrne has opened up about his serious health scare from October 2021 after discovering three blocked arteries at just 49 years of age.
His blocked arteries required surgery and left him with five stents, tubes to keep the arteries open. He has since recovered and opened up about his current condition to Ray D’Arcy on RTE Radio 1.
Explaining how well he is doing now, the Dubliner said; “They did the stress test on me and they said, ‘you’re great. You’re back to full capacity now.'”
“My head is getting better. I’m still aware of little knocks and so when I’m running or cycling, I just have a listen to my body every now and again. I feel good now. Your heart is just there, you can feel it pumping all day, you can feel it, you’re listening to it. It always hops and jumps and bumps, it’s natural, it’s just what it does.”
But for the time being he is still very aware of his heart; “It takes about a year for that to go away where you’re not listening to it all the time.”
He also shared what his hospital experience was like, saying; “When I got my stents in first and they got me that it was three blocked arteries in the hospital.”
“They were going, ‘That’s what you have there.’ I was going, ‘Why am I not being put into a gurney? Why is everyone not immediately rushing into a panic?’”
“They said, ‘We deal with this quite a lot, Jason.'”
But while Jason was starting to worry, his team weren’t; “I said, ‘Well do I need to be operated now?’ My surgeon said, ‘Well I’m going on a golf holiday for eight days’, I said, ‘But what if I die?’ He said, ‘You’re not going to die.’”
Following the surgery in October, Jason had to cancel many gigs including part of his British tour. But he is back working now, being a team captain on RTÉ’s Clear History, and his life is getting back to normal.
“I think you just get more confident. You realise that everything’s okay now. I’m being checked every six months. Scans, cholesterol and all.”
