“They did all these tests and then I went to another hospital and, as a result, I had a pacemaker fitted on Friday afternoon and I’m having a new aortic valve fitted on Monday week.”
Lowe said he wasn’t aware of the issue with his heart.
“If I thought it had anything to do with my heart I would have stopped, but I had no symptoms,” he said.
“I had a few heart checks before and there were really no symptoms. I was under lights up on the stage and it got pretty hot.
“I just started to feel a bit hot and the next minute, crash, and over I went. But anyhow, I’m here now, I’m home, am having a week’s rest and then get a new aortic valve, which is another marvellous procedure they can do.”
He added that he should be “right as rain” in a week.
Lowe has spoken in the past of his health struggles and was told several times that he “wasn’t going to survive”.
“Strokes, brain haemorrhage, heart attacks, thrombosis of the lungs … I had to prepare myself and my family,” he told NZME in 2019.
“Somehow I managed to get through it. When I think back, I just refused to compromise the principles I have to fit in with mediocrity. I think that helped keep it all going.”
Lowe was knighted in 2019 for his services to youth and education.
