Martin Roberts will return to film 'Homes Under the Hammer' in a couple of weeks, following a life-saving operation.
Martin Roberts will return to film Homes Under the Hammer in a couple of weeks, following a life-saving heart op
The 58-year-old star recently told how he had to have one-and-a-half litres of fluid drained from around his heart after experiencing chest pains, and the TV presenter - who has fronted the BBC renovation and auction show since the first series in 2003 - isn't planning to quit anytime soon, because he is desperate to reach 20 years on the programme in 2023.
Martin - who suffered a cardiac tamponade, when extra fluid builds up in the space around the heart - said: "I've got to get to 20 years.
"Hopefully I'll get some nicer properties and they'll cherry pick the good ones, rather than the really bad ones."
Asked if he'd like to get to 21 years, Martin said, "Yeah, I'd like to carry on."
Martin - who is married to wife Kirsty Roberts - also revealed how he knew he needed to seek medical help when he began to become "delirious" and was putting letters the wrong way around.
Speaking on ITV's 'This Morning', he added: "I'd been feeling a bit poorly, under the weather for a couple of weeks. I've had a few chest infections over the last few years and I've had asthma since childhood, so I'm used to quite a tight chest.
"As it approached the Easter bank holiday weekend, it was starting to get really bad where I could hardly walk without struggling for breath.
"The confusing thing about this, it's a bit of a red herring, is that it gets you in the breathing side of things, so you don't think it's something to do with your heart. You think, 'It must be something to do with my chest.'
"Then it's the dangerous thing of playing Google doctor.
"It looked like it could have been the symptoms for long COVID - real lethargy, a tightness in the chest, pain in the chest, difficulty breathing, so you pause it and pause it and by the time it got to just after the bank holiday weekend, I was starting to be delirious, putting letters the wrong way round, I said to Kirsty, 'We've got to go to hospital.' "
Martin recently explained how his heart was being "strangled" before he underwent the life-saving operation.
He said: "Within three or four hours I was in an emergency operating ward having a tube put into this sac around the heart and they drained off a litre and a half of fluid. It was literally sort of strangling myself.
"It was very bizarre that I was awake throughout the whole process, so I watched as they drew out all this death-giving liquid that was in my chest. I’m still here."