The doctor studied my hip X-ray and sighed... OH NO: An uproarious account of PIERS MORGAN'S week in hospital

Thursday, January 15

Woke up feelingly joyously happy after Arsenal’s 3-2 win over Chelsea in the first leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final, a victory driven by our superstar Declan Rice, the man we signed from West Ham for £105 million but whose performances have been so good, his chant is ‘De-clan R-ice, we got him half price!’

I was also feeling unusually fit and well after a uniquely flu-less Christmas season (I had the jab in early November, for the first time), and a relaxing golfing holiday in Barbados with my sons.

My family hate me going on holiday. Not because they hate me. At least I don’t think that’s the reason.

No, it’s because I constantly find inventive new ways to damage myself.

In 2007, I broke five ribs and collapsed a lung falling off a Segway in Los Angeles.

In 2013, Aussie cricket fast-bowling legend Brett Lee challenged me to a six-ball net session during the Ashes test match in Melbourne after I branded England’s batsmen gutless cowards for losing the series 3-0 before I’d even arrived. (Sound familiar?). Lee duly broke one of my ribs.

In 2017, I broke three more ribs playing tennis with my eldest, Spencer, in Antigua.

And in 2020, I broke my ankle stumbling in a divot in a French restaurant car park on the first night of a five-week summer vacation.

So, the fact I’d returned from the Caribbean intact was a relief to us all.

At 1.30pm, I met a business friend at a Mayfair hotel to discuss my burgeoning Uncensored YouTube empire. We had a great meeting but, as with all business affairs, it’s the little things that can trip you up if you drop your guard.

We’d been sitting in an alcove that connects to the main ground floor restaurant via a small step.

Neil Armstrong managed to safely navigate his much larger ‘one small step for man’ when he landed on the Moon. But one small five-inch step proved to be this man’s nemesis.

I forgot it existed as we left, lost my footing, stumbled wildly, desperately tried to rebalance myself, then hit the restaurant floor like the proverbial sack of spuds.

It all seemed to happen weirdly slowly; imagine an old tower block being demolished.

What happened a lot quicker was the violent explosion of pain that erupted through the left side of my 60-year-old torso.

‘OWW!’ I grimaced, trying to keep a modicum of composure in front of the smattering of lunchtime diners, as I lay in a mangled heap on the floor.

My hip and thigh area felt as if they’d been set on fire and, perversely, I broke into a drenching cold sweat.

My friend, aided by two restaurant staff, rushed to help me up and into a nearby chair. Every attempt at walking was agony.

Minutes later, I was in the back of my friend’s chauffeured car on my way to the Cromwell Hospital in Kensington where they run an urgent care unit.

(As I said to social media trolls who inevitably raged about me going private: Yes, I’m lucky I can afford health insurance and, yes, I’m pleased people who can afford it like me don’t further clog up our shamefully over-run NHS hospital A&E units.)

Initial examination was encouraging, the doctor didn’t think anything was broken.

My wife Celia arrived just in time for my swiftly-taken X-rays to return. Then came the two words you never want to hear from anyone in a white coat.

‘Oh, no . . .’ sighed the doctor as he eyed the images on his computer.

‘How bad?’

He showed me the X-ray.

‘You’ve fractured the neck of your femur. It’s a bad break.’

‘What will that mean?’

‘It means that you will either have it repaired or you may need a new hip.’

A new hip??? For f***’s sake. I was taken to a room, given morphine and had a fitful, very uncomfortable night.

Friday 16 

The repair/replace debate was an interesting one. My hip was in otherwise good condition and didn’t need to be replaced.

But if I had it repaired, it would mean 12 weeks on crutches and there would be a 30 per cent chance of the repair failing, necessitating a replacement anyway.

Whereas if I had it replaced now, it would mean three to four weeks on crutches and a 95 per cent success rate.

The surgeon, Professor Ali Ghoz, said he was happy to do either, but it was my call, so I went for the new hip.

Whatever operation you have, it’s always an unnerving moment as you get wheeled down to theatre.

I’d discovered the death rate from hip replacement surgery is incredibly low at 0.30 per cent, but 100,000 hip replacements are done each year in the UK, which means 300 people a year don’t come back from where I was now headed.

If this sounds irrational self-doom-mongering, ask yourself what the odds are on fracturing your femur by falling over in a 5-star hotel restaurant . . .

Fortunately, anaesthesia deals with all such mental torment and I was out for the count in two minutes. I woke up again around 11pm, groggy and confused, to Professor Ghoz telling me the hour-long op had gone very well. It certainly had; I’d cheated the 0.30 per cent odds.

Hip, hip, hoorah!

Saturday 17 

Tons of opioid drugs gave me a reasonable sleep.

I was slightly out of it, but that’s a price I was very happy to pay for avoiding searing pain.

My three sons arrived to watch the Arsenal match on TV with me.

Every time they have any problem and feel sorry for themselves, I recite my favourite motivational speech from Rocky Balboa to his spoiled brat son in the sixth movie of the franchise: ‘The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are, it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it.

‘Nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you get hit and keep movin’ forward . . . That’s how winning is done!’

It has become a running joke in the family.

‘I guess we’re now gonna find out just how hard you can get hit, Pops, and keep movin’ forward,’ said middle son Stanley, speaking in pure Philadelphia drawl.

The pressure was on.

‘Is the pain really bad?’ Bertie, the youngest, asked.

‘What pain?’ I replied, flexing my muscles, as they all fell about laughing.

Ironically, the game against Nottingham Forest was a very painful 0-0 draw.

Right when I needed Arsenal to raise my spirits, they failed me.

Sunday 18

The nursing staff at the Cromwell are both amazingly professional, and amazingly cosmopolitan, coming from all corners of the world.

One of my nurses is a young Ukrainian woman from Odessa, another is from Yemen.

Both have had to go to work each day, knowing they have family back home trying to survive war.

Hearing their stories certainly concentrated my mind to keep my whining to a minimum.

As word spread about my hospitalisation, and I started getting concerned calls/texts, I decided to get ahead of the inevitable ‘Piers must be dying’ rumour mill by revealing what had happened on my social media.

Obviously, this sparked a massive escalation in calls and messages, and myriad media reports around the world from America to Australia.

‘Your hip’s made news here in India,’ messaged Freddie Flintoff, someone who knows all about being the focus of breaking global health news.

At least it spared me having to tell everyone the same thing individually.

‘Get well soon,’ emailed former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. ‘It’s only you who could take the headlines away from Donald Trump on the day he threatens the whole of Europe with a tariff war!’

Another ex-PM, Rishi Sunak, who like Gordon is an intelligent, serious-minded and fundamentally decent person whose premiership was cut short before he could really show what he could do as leader, offered to pop round if I got bored and need visitors.

Andrew Neil emailed: ‘News of your stramash (good Scottish word) reaches me in freezing, snowy NYC. Falling is the biggest risk once we’re above a certain age – which is why even a billionaire like [Mike] Bloomberg said a banister was his best friend.’

I Googled stramash, which means a ‘noisy disturbance, uproar, chaotic mess, a smash, crash, or disaster, sometimes used as a verb to mean causing a commotion or shattering something.’ As for falling, 14,000 people tumble to their deaths each year in the UK, and it’s the most common cause of injury-related death for over-75s, including poor Dame Jilly Cooper who died after falling down her stairs last year.

Another Dame, my great friend Joan Collins with whom I have relentless mocking banter, WhatsApp’d: ‘I’ve been trying to think of nasty funny things to say to you as a “get well soon” message but frankly nothing beats “sack of spuds”. I’m so sorry for you, I’m petrified of falling, it’s the worst! Now you have to do PHYSIO – do NOT stint on that. The doctors can only do so much. The rest is up to YOU!! Take this seriously now! Get well soon. Love Joan.’

Classic Joan: funny, honest, bossy, caring and wise. There’s a reason she’s the world’s most vibrant nonagenarian.

The physio theme has been very prevalent in a lot of advice from people who have been through similar scrapes.

‘Between Ann and I,’ said Lord Sugar, ‘back ops, knee replacements and broken ankle. I can tell you physio is 100 per cent essential for full recovery. Don’t skimp. We had the Spurs physio every day. As boring and painful as it is, seriously get it organised.’

The Cromwell physio team, led by a splendidly no-nonsense South African lady named Megan, had me up and moving on crutches since the morning after surgery.

It is boring, and painful, but I know I have to do it, so I will.

Another very sprightly pensioner, Sir Rod Stewart, emailed a message entitled ‘SILLINESS’.

‘My dear Piers, here’s hoping you’ll be able to celebrate when your lot win the Prem. Please let me know the name of the hotel so I don’t make the same mistake. Get well soon. Rod.’

Coincidentally, a few American friends immediately urged me to sue the hotel, an instinctive default reaction of most Americans in a country where litigation is as common as breathing.

I’m happy to name it: the Four Seasons in Park Lane. But only because it’s a great hotel, I always enjoy going there and the solicitous staff did everything they could to help me.

As for suing, why on Earth would I? It’s my fault I tripped on the step, not theirs.

I hate blame culture, especially when money is the motivation. And if there was any legal action, the CCTV footage would doubtless emerge, and there ain’t no way my career survives that video!

The other point of conjecture is whether alcohol played a part in my downfall.

Everyone seems to assume I cratered during a long boozy lunch, led by Ricky Gervais who reposted my hospital photo and quipped: ‘Apparently he was drunk on @DutchBarnVodka [his brand].’

I was due to interview Kemi Badenoch in my Uncensored studio this week, and she sent me a nice message: ‘Piers, sorry to hear you’re in the wars, hope you’re on the mend soon.’

When I stressed that I’d been entirely sober when it happened, she replied: ‘Sober, eh?’

And added a knowing, deeply sceptical winking emoji.

But ironically, as one of my doctor mates said, if I had been intoxicated, it might have helped. ‘You wouldn’t have been so alert, so would have rolled down less dramatically, and probably bounced.’

My ex-TV wife Susanna Reid tried to book me for Good Morning Britain.

‘Can you do a live hit from your hospital bed? We can talk about the “Revisiting 2016 trend” and reminisce about being together reporting Brexit and Trump . . . ’

I was momentarily tempted until she added: ‘ . . . and you can talk about Prince Harry, being officially old with a new hip and Arsenal dropping points.’

‘I won’t be doing anything from hospital,’ I replied.

‘You must be really poorly if you can’t broadcast,’ she replied, knowing me well.

Truth is, I don’t trust myself on morphine. There’s being uncensored, and really uncensored!

Though as my son Bertie said: ‘Dad, if you livestream your show from here on strong drugs, it would break the internet.’

Monday 19

My broken hip has made all the papers, but was eclipsed by breaking news that Brooklyn Beckham has pulled a Prince Harry and disowned his family in spectacularly vicious style.

As I watched the TV coverage, my glance dropped to a cushion below the TV that one of my sons bought me, which says: ‘Be the person your dog thinks you are.’

I wonder if any of the self-obsessed, narcissistic, fame-ravenous Beckhams is the person their dogs think they are?

As for his allegations, I can quite believe what Brooklyn says is true – that his parents would flog their own deaths to Netflix if the money was right.

I’ve been sent lots of gifts – flowers, fruit, cheese, books and cupcakes – by incredibly kind friends, but BBC newsreader Sophie Raworth excelled herself by arriving mid-run (she is a serious long-distance runner) bearing a bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape and a bag of liquorice that she’d carried on her back.

The touching gesture was only slightly tempered by the fact she ravenously scoffed half the liquorice before leaving.

Tuesday 20

There’s no doubt that falling over in a restaurant, and being forced to have a new hip, has made me feel old for the first time in my life.

As Genesis rock star Mike Rutherford, a golfing mate, and someone who broke his own hip last year on the ski slopes, put it: ‘Skiing break slightly better story than tripping in a restaurant!’

He’s not wrong.

Fortunately, I have friends with a rare talent for boosting morale.

‘You have always been a man ahead of your time,’ texted Katherine Jenkins. ‘Having a new hip at 60 is so chic.’

Even if she didn’t mean it, I felt instantly perkier.

Bear Grylls invoked an iconic daredevil for his inspiration: ‘What a tough thing to go through . . . but you’re alive and smiling and that unstoppable spirit will see you through. Just remember Evel Knievel: “Bones heal, and chicks love scars!”

Knievel fell 20 times in his stunt career and is in the Guinness Book of World Records for most bones broken in a lifetime – with 433 fractures. But none of them killed him (diabetes did), his bones all healed, and a lot of chicks did indeed love his scars.

Another BBC news journalist friend, Andrea Catherwood, even outdid our mutual mate Sophie by turning up with a bulging Whole Foods bag.

‘Don’t panic, it’s not Whole Foods sushi. It’s a freshly cooked meal from The Devonshire.’

We’d had a great meal recently at London’s hottest Irish gastro-pub in Soho, run by a brilliant Irishman, Oisin Rogers.

‘Oisin brought it here himself, after I said it might aid your recovery.’ She showed me a photo of Oisin on a Lime bike outside the Cromwell, handing her boxes of lamb chops with all the trimmings, and a suet and Guinness pudding.

The food at the Cromwell is excellent, but God, that richly sauced, gloriously decadent Devonshire dinner was just what the doctor (didn’t) order.

To add to my pleasure, Arsenal destroyed Inter Milan in Italy tonight. We’re now top of the Premier League, top of the Champions League, and progressing well in two cup competitions.

The only thing I can think about is being physically capable of making the last big matches as we gun for so many titles . . . and making the victory parades.

That will drive me to do the physio more than anything else.

Wednesday 21

Time to go home. I was taken out of the Cromwell in a wheelchair, to a waiting black cab whose driver took one look at me and exclaimed loudly, albeit with a smile: ‘Oh, for f***’s sake, not YOU! I wouldn’t have taken the job if I’d known!’

He was a West Ham fan.

Got back home to extreme apathy from my two Burmese cats, Dennis and Bobby (named after two of the legendary Arsenal ‘Invincibles’ team, Dennis Bergkamp and Robert Pires).

I didn’t expect the red carpet treatment, but not being asleep on the carpet would have been nice.

The Cromwell gave me a set of standard ugly dull-grey crutches, which are functional but aesthetically soul-sucking.

Amanda Holden saved my soul by sending over a personally designed set made by Cool Crutches.

And the design Amanda chose? Mine have ‘BREAKING NEWS’ logos all over them!

Thursday 22

It’s the little things that irk the most. My mother, who had her hip replaced several years ago, has been sending me things she found particularly useful.

She was especially enthused about a ‘grabber’ device which helps you picks up things or put things on.

There was just one problem: in an all-time rookie error, I left it out of range when I went to sleep last night, so when I woke at 4am, I couldn’t grab the grabber to grab anything.

I’d also taken off my hospital slipper socks. Therefore, I couldn’t use the crutches to go downstairs as my compression stockings were, ironically, too slippery.

I spent 30 minutes fruitlessly trying to solve this crisis before I realised I either stayed there in bed for three hours, doomscrolling about hip surgery rehab setbacks, or I implemented a more immediate life-threatening risk by waking a blissfully comatose Celia to ask her to put my socks on.

It took quite a few entreaties. And the eerily ominous Hitchcock-like tinge to her silence that followed as the socks went on, will haunt me for a long time.

As Rocky Balboa attested, the worst enemy you have in situations like mine is wallowing in your own misery.

My favourite poem is Self-Pity by D H Lawrence:

‘I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself.

A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough

without ever having felt sorry for itself.’

Last year, I lost a great village mate, Miles Caldwell, to glioblastoma brain cancer, and he had to endure horrifically worse pain and indignities then I am going through, knowing in his case there was no cure.

Never once did he show a trace of self-pity.

I miss his regular calls that often began with the words, ‘What the hell have you been up to now, Morgan?’

As I told his widow today, he’d have been merciless about how I’d sustained my injury.

When I get a low moment, I think of Miles and snap out of it. He’d have given anything to be in my situation.

Friday 23

My long-time physio Shaz John arrived with his box of torture tools, barely able to contain his glee.

‘I’m the luckiest person in Britain – I get to cause Piers Morgan enormous pain for weeks on end!’ It’s going to be a long three months.