30th March 1984 – Page 7
I’m getting better says sick star Chris
Story by Paul Connew in New York
ROCK star Chris Stein, battling back to health from a mystery disease that nearly killed him, said yesterday: “Debbie Harry saved me.”
Chris, who was guitarist in Debbie’s one-time supergroup Blondie, added: “She stuck through all of this with me, I would have been lost without her.”
The couple have lived together for years.
Since illness struck Chris two years ago his weight has dropped to just over eight stones.
Eventually he had to go into hospital and 39-year-old Debbie, distraught with worry, has kept a vigil at his bedside.
She has become overweight, haggard and unkempt.
The disease, which prevents Chris’s system from absorbing protein, baffled doctors. But now they have identified it.
“It’s a weird genetic thing,” said Chris, 35. “Ten or 15 years ago it definitely would have killed me.”
He added wryly: “It’s one of those things you have never heard of. Trust me not to get anything normal.”
Chris thinks that he has passed the critical point and is heading back to health.
“The past two years have been like an incredible soap opera,” he said.
“With the band breaking up, people letting Debbie and me down and then my illness, it has been like death and a rebirth.”
Chris hopes that devoted Debbie will revert to her old self, too, as the strain eases.
