For almost a decade, Countryfile favourite star Charlotte Smith believed that she had just a few years of life left thanks to a misdiagnosis. In 2010, doctors told Charlotte that she was suffering from Lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM), a rare, progressive disease that causes abnormal tissue growth in the lungs and is almost always fatal.
“When I heard I probably had this very rare, potentially serious disease with an unpronounceable name I went into shock,” Charlotte told The Sun.
« The doctor was honest and told me all the stats, including it being 10 years, on average, between diagnosis and needing a lung transplant or even death.”
She recalled: « I left the consultation feeling like my world was collapsing. My kids were just five and three then and I was worried that I wouldn’t be around to see them grow up. When I told [my husband] Mike about LAM, he was so calm and reassuring. »
The health scare began just after her brother’s wedding when Charlotte felt very unwell and, even though she hadn’t been drinking, woke up with a hangover. In the following weeks, Charlotte began suffering severe breathing difficulties, which she initially dismissed as a simple chest infection.
She consulted her doctor and was diagnosed with LAM. After being told that she had – at best – 10 years to live, Charlotte lived under the shadow of the disease for eight years before finding out the truth.
It was only after she had to undergo emergency surgery for a collapsed lung that doctors discovered that she didn’t have LAM at all: “They had to do an operation this time,” she recalled, “and they discovered that I am very lucky. I do not have that disease.”
She says she’s “relaxed” about the misdiagnosis, saying being told that you don’t have a fatal condition “is much better than being told you do.”
Although it’s not always fatal, LAM can be hugely debilitating. Over half of sufferers will find themselves breathless walking on flat ground, and 10% were completely housebound. Charlotte does have a lung problem, but all doctors can tell her at the moment is that it’s not LAM.
“They don’t really know what’s wrong with my lungs,” she says. “they have holes in them and they don’t really know why. So I have about 80% lung capacity a fit person would. »
But her lung issues aren’t the thing that puts Charlotte off climbing over stiles. « Since I had my knee done I don’t like stiles, » Charlotte said. « I find them very difficult because my bionic knee, my replacement knee, doesn’t bend quite… so that’s very inelegant.
« Another presenter you might see doing the stiles but for me it’s too embarrassing so we cut that out. »
It’s not the only personal struggle Charlotte’s had to face. When filming a documentary piece on how people living in the countryside deal with having dementia, she shared a private battle closer to home.
“My grandmother had dementia. Dementia is horrific for sufferers and their families wherever they live but if you’re somewhere rural it’s a lot harder to get support.
“Dementia can be very difficult if the sufferer is a farmer because farms are full of hazards. But it was really heartening to see how many lovely people in rural communities make it their business to come out and help people. So the filming was sad and heart-warming in equal measure,” she told the BBC.
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