Alan Brazil Opens Up About Facing Death: How He Said Goodbye to Family Before a Life-Saving Surgery

ALAN BRAZIL has revealed he was given just weeks to live by doctors before finding the perfect match for life-saving liver transplant surgery.

TalkSPORT breakfast host Brazil was forced to take a long break from the show after falling desperately ill.

Alan Brazil bravely opened up on how he was a couple of weeks away from death Credit: talkSPORT The radio icon returned to work after months away after undergoing life-saving liver transplant surgery Credit: Alamy

And , the former international spoke candidly about how he had stared death in the face.

Chatting on talkSPORT alongside co-host Gabby Agbonlahor, the 67-year-old said: “I am not going to bore everyone but it is remarkable really what happened.

“One minute I am doing this (the programme), I’ve finished at 9.45am, there’s a car outside and I am like, ‘what’s going on?’ Straight down to Addenbrooke’s Hospital and a few hours later… wallop.

“They open me up and stick a new liver in there. So I did have cancer in my liver and we suspected that for months to be honest, but they didn’t want to go in and touch it and shake it up in case you could make it spread.

“First of all they said the perfect match came in, otherwise I might still be waiting and people will know what I am talking about who might be on the list.

“You can wait 18 months, you can go down there, get ready to have the (operation) and they say ‘it’s not quite right, go away and come back and we will phone you later, maybe in a few weeks’ and it can be murder.”

Brazil bravely continued: “I was so lucky, I went down there and they said, ‘we’ve got one and it looks perfect so we are going to do it now’.

“They inject you all over and you have to sign a few forms, you get carried in there and it’s like ‘goodbye everyone’, that’s how bad it was. I thought ‘see you later’. Wife’s in tears, it was horrible.

“I didn’t realise it was that extreme, but it was. They told me, another couple of weeks and you were gone. I had seven or eight hours on there, the fluid build-up I had was horrendous.

“They cut me open and there was a flood, it was that bad everywhere I had it.

“I did have a few complications, my heart stopped for 40 seconds. I said ‘did you get the old jump-leads on?’ He said ‘no, no. It came back. We were about to take action but it came back’.”

Brazil also revealed that, as part of his doctor’s orders, he was told to stay out of the sun, something he admits was “boring” as he had a week in Spain without being able to visit his favourite bars and beaches.

Meanwhile, he added he is on a “massive” amount of pills to help his immune system on the road to recovery, which he said will take at least six months.

The legend revealed his return to talkSPORT on Tuesday, saying he had missed it.

He will be off on Thursday’s show before coming back again on Friday.

In the meantime, he’s secured Ipswich season tickets and is set to spend a fair chunk of time down at Portman Road.