Welcome home to a real trouper

Nov 7 2007 By Yonnie McInnes, Ayrshire Post

JUST 19 days after undergoing emergency life-saving heart surgery in Spain, entertainer Sydney Devine was back on stage in Ayr.

Anxious wife Shirley had driven him to the Great Scottish Country Music Festival at Craig Tara from their Ayr home.

She was so nervous after everything her husband had been through that she could hardly bear to watch him perform.

Back home on Monday morning Sydney said: “It was undoubtedly a hard hour for me physically but I appear there every year and was determined I wouldn’t let my pal, event organiser, Roy Cooper down. It all seemed to go down well.

“I’m determined to perform as usual but I must confess there were a few times over the last couple of weeks that I thought I wouldn’t be here at all.

“It’s another 10 days or so before I’m due to appear at the Pavilion Theatre, Glasgow, and that will give me more recovery time.”

Sydney collapsed on the golf course with severe stomach pains while at his holiday home in Spain last month.

Doctors discovered two aneurysms in the major blood vessel feeding the heart.

Shirley explained: “It’s been a dreadfully worrying experience for the whole family. Initially Sydney wouldn’t go to the hospital as he wanted to wait and get treatment when we came home but the pain got so bad he finally relented.

“That decision undoubtedly saved his life. If he hadn’t gone into hospital when he did he could literally have died at any time.”

Sydney’s condition was so serious doctors feared that the aneurysms could have burst at any time and urgent surgery was arranged in Spain.

He added: “My private insurance company wanted me to fly home to have the operation but after they sent a doctor out from England he discovered that was out of the question as several scans revealed the severity of the problem.

“These aneurysms could have popped at any time and flying was too dangerous for me. So my flight home was cancelled.

“It’s a small world as this doctor, Bruce Webster, turned out to be Scottish and the nephew of an Ayrshire actress friend of mine — Gwyneth Guthrie (Mrs Mack).

“A specialist lady surgeon from Madrid, Tomassa Centella, came to Xanit Hospital and she successfully inserted two stents (special steel mesh tubes) into the affected areas.

“I was given sedation and an epidural for the operation and can’t remember much about it. I spent some time in Intensive Care before being released from hospital and finally flew home last Monday.

“It was such a relief to get back to Ayrshire.”