Vanessa Feltz reveals grisly keepsake after being rushed in for emergency surgery

TV and radio star is not one to get squirmish.

Just three weeks ago she posted a video for fans from her own hospital bed after her A&E dash and emergency operation - and she had no airs and graces about sharing what she was going through.

And now as she speaks to the Mirror ahead of the launch of , , the TV icon not only looks stunning in our new at home photoshoot, but she's definitely bounced back from surgery.

But she thank's to a certain gift from her surgeon she has a reminder of what she went through. Not that she's likely to forget it anytime soon. After all, she was “praying for an operation” after a dramatic hospital dash and in such “agonising pain” that she needed a morphine drip.

Speaking exclusively to the , the while playing with her grandchildren one afternoon before her LBC show.

The broadcaster and journalist – a doting grandmother of four, with two from each of her daughters, Allegra and Saskia – said: “I was doubled over in pain, proper agony. And I was meant to be going to work.... And in real life, I always work, always. I take a couple of paracetamol, knock back a couple of Nurofen, and I'm there. And then afterwards, I stagger into the hospital.”

But likening the excruciating pain to childbirth, she continued: “I'm absolutely used to working feeling quite ill, I've done it billions of times. But this time, the pain was jaw-dropping. It was almost like it was fictional. It was so extreme. I cannot be feeling this, especially not from having felt completely normal and absolutely fine.

“When I got to the A&E and said, 'I can't sit down, I can't lie down, argh!' And everyone was like,

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Vanessa revealed that doctors quickly diagnosed kidney stones – hard deposits made of minerals and salts inside the kidneys.

“I said, ‘I've never had anything wrong with my kidneys in my entire life’. But it was... And then they said, ‘We're going to get someone to come and scan you’. And then they told me, ‘If it's a stone, if it's less than five millimetres in diameter, you just have to go home and be left on your own to wee it out’,” Vanessa recalled.

“And so I started praying fervently, ‘Please let it be more than five millimetres, please’. Because I wanted to have the operation. I've never prayed for an operation in my life but this time I was like, ‘Please operate on me. Do not send me home’. And at this point, I had a morphine drip up, and it was still agony. It was terrible.

“I've heard from so many people with kidney stones because it's really common; it's not even a special thing. Everyone's getting them all over the place! And all these people are going, ‘My God, the pain. Vanessa, the agony. It's off the scale’.”

Thankfully, the kidney stone was, as she hoped, large enough for surgeons to operate.

"Thank God it was six millimetres... they were wheeling me off to surgery as an emergency... As the surgeon told me I thought, ‘Oh I could kiss you. I love you. Please get the thing out’.

The operation wasn't simple - the kidney stones were impacted in the bladder. So they had to forgo their normal methods and bring in the lasers. Vanessa knows all this not just because the doctors told her afterwards - but because of her surgeon's gory gift. He gave her a film on the operation - which is certainly a unique addition to her showreel.

She says: "They couldn't get the hook in or whatever they do to get it out. I imagine it's something like a crochet hook. So they had to nuke it with a laser and destroy it. He sent me the film, that was nice of him. So they had to get it into three different bits, three separate chunks to get it out. Yuk. And then I felt pretty rubbish."

Ever the trouper, Vanessa went back to work the next day but, as she admits, what was especially painful was going through the sometimes painful recovery period without the support of a partner.

She added: “I had to do that thing in the middle of the night where you wake up in like, ‘Ooh, aahh’, and you're single so you can't even moan to someone. You can't even go, ‘I'm in pain’, because no one is there to listen, no one cares. Empty. And then I had to put the electric blanket on the painful bit. I felt quite sorry for myself at 4am, but I feel a lot better now.”

Diet, some medical conditions, and certain supplements and medications are among the many causes of kidney stones.

They can be extremely painful, and can lead to kidney infections or the kidney not working properly if left untreated. According to the site, more than one in 10 people are affected.

• , by Vanessa Feltz (Transworld, £22), is published on October 24.

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