Alex Brooker – who is on the Great Celebrity Bake Off tonight (Sunday, April 5) – once opened up about a “life-changing” operation medics couldn’t complete.
The TV star, 41, who found fame on The Last Leg, was born with congenital abnormalities on his hands and arm, and a twisted right leg that had to be amputated when he was a baby.
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Alex Brooker’s life-changing operation
Back in 2016, during an interview with The Standard, Alex opened up about his disabilities.
He also spoke about the work that Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) did to help him.
Alex was in and out of the hospital throughout his childhood. He was a patient at GOSH from when he was seven months old until he was an adult. During that time, he underwent 40 operations.
“When I was born, my fingers on each hand were fused together, and I didn’t have the opposable thumb [on my left hand]. Operations at GOSH have given that to me. They twisted it round to give me a grip, and it’s comfortably the most life-changing operation I have had. The one that was the difference between an independent life and not,” he said.
Alex on the operation medics couldn’t complete
However, an attempt at an operation on his right hand was unsuccessful.
“They tried to do the same with my right hand, and it didn’t work. I drive a completely unadapted manual car, and I write. That one operation was completely life-changing,” he said.
“I don’t think at the time when I had it [aged 10] I thought about it with the gravitas that I do now. My mum and dad probably wouldn’t have talked to me about it anyway; it was just another operation,” he then added.
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Alex Brooker on being ‘freaked out’ by seeing someone with a similar disability
In the same interview, Alex also confessed that the only time he’d ever met someone with similar disabilities was when he was 17, playing football against a boy who had a prosthetic leg.
The star admitted he was “so freaked out” by seeing someone “so similar” that he never went and spoke to him.
Alex also spoke highly of GOSH, admitting he associates the hospital with “comfort”.
He added that the hospital is a “magical place”, and though “you find yourself in these horrible situations – having operations isn’t nice – but at the same time, there is a sense of relief because you feel like you are in good hands”.
Catch Alex on The Great Celebrity Bake Off on Channel 4 tonight (Sunday, April 5) from 7.40pm.
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