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The Block host Scott Cam's emergency surgery: 'Terrible pain'
Scott Cam has revealed he recently underwent hours-long emergency neck surgery after a pinched nerve left him in such ‘terrible pain’ that he was ‘about to pass out’.
“It was a wear and tear issue that I had, I haven’t really told anybody about this,” the host of The Block revealed on Nova 96.9’s Fitzy & Wippa show on Thursday morning.
“My neck just gave away a bit from 40 years of toil,” the 58-year-old added.
Scott described how a vertebral disc in his neck ‘blew out’ and ‘squashed all the nerves that came down my arms’; “It was terrible pain, terrible, terrible!”
“It was my arm, my right arm and I said to my wife ‘you’re going to have to call an ambulance because I’m going to pass out’. It’s like my arm was on fire,” he said.
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After being ‘pumped full of morphine,’ which he said didn’t take the edge off his 12/10 pain, he suddenly found himself in Sydney’s St Vincent’s Hospital being prepped for a ‘three or four-hour’ operation on his neck.
“They had to take all the muscle off the back of my neck, cut me open and cut a groove between the two vertebrae for the nerve to sit in,” he explained.
Scott put his injury down to decades of looking out for his knees and lower back at the expense of his neck during tasks such as carrying heavy timber on his shoulder.
“Or you’re working above your head, it’s all that work above our heads we do, you’re squashing your neck up and it’s squashes your vertebrae,” he said.
Following his health drama — which saw him stay in hospital for five days — the TV personality issued a sobering warning to younger tradespeople and apprentices.
“I know how hard apprentices and young tradesmen work. You’ve got to really look after yourself throughout your younger years,” he advised.
Scott was positive about his recovery, telling Fitzy and Wippa that his doctor’s post-op orders to avoid lifting anything heavier than one kilo would soon be over.
“I’ll be fine, a couple more weeks and I can pick up a carton of beer!” he laughed.
He and co-host Shelley Craft are gearing up for the start of the sixteenth season of The Block on Sunday, August 23, which will see couples transform five houses from five different decades.
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