I’m a comedian and I know what it’s like to nearly die on stage

I used to be a heavy smoker, like 30 to 40 cigarettes a day. So, when I started coughing up blood, my mind didn’t explore a range of possible explanations. It went straight to cancer. End of discussion. I’d seen the films. Once you cough up blood, you’re not in the sequel. That thought alone was enough to absolutely terrify me. This all happened back in 2019, just before we all enjoyed that fun, relaxing couple of years indoors thanks to Covid.

At the time, I was in Dubai doing a run of comedy shows. Life for me was busy. Monday to Friday I worked full time in an office. Thursday to Sunday I was on the road doing comedy. I was still new to performing, but I was getting bigger and the pressure was on. By the time Dubai came around, my life had culminated into one long, unhealthy blur. Looking back now, it didn’t start while I was in Dubai, it started much earlier.

A few days before I flew out, I went to the urgent care centre at my local hospital because something didn’t feel right. That alone should tell you how serious it was, I don’t go to hospital! I don’t do hospitals. Unless I’m bleeding heavily enough to need stitches, I avoid them at all costs. I’ve never liked them. Plus, I grew up with that very 90s approach to injury: “Just walk it off, mate. Man up.”

But this time, I went because I was having trouble breathing. The strange thing was it wasn’t happening all the time, only in the evening. I later realised it wasn’t about the time of day at all. It was happening when I laid down. I just happened to lie down in the evening… because that’s when I go to bed.

Addictive

I grew up with asthma and had it badly as a kid. I even spent time in hospital as a baby. Which makes it even more ridiculous that I grew up to become a heavy smoker in the first place, but that’s the power of peer pressure for you, coupled with the fact cigarettes were cheaper than water at the time. Smoking was a dumb choice.

Growing up in North London, I was an active kid. I played a lot of sport. But back then nutritional advice was simple: eat your sandwiches and clear your plate because that’s “good for you”. So I did. The problem came when I stopped playing sport but didn’t stop eating like I still was. The weight piled on. It went up and down for years. At my heaviest, I was 154kg. I wasn’t happy but I was living a very addictive life filled with not the best of choices that would later become the best lessons.

The only place I ever really was happy was on stage. I’ve always loved performing, as a kid, through my teens, into adulthood. I taught dance. I performed in West End musicals (I say “musicals” like I did more than one). Then comedy came along and finally gave me the canvas I felt I was meant to paint on (oh my God, he’s so deep). From the very first joke I ever told at an open mic near Liverpool Street in London, I was hooked.

Infection

By 2019, life looked good on paper. I had a full-time job, comedy was building, I had an agent. But my life was pure Jekyll and Hyde. During the week, I was the person I had to be. At weekends, I got to be the person I wanted to be. And that feeling, the one when you walk off stage after an amazing gig is more addictive than any drug you’ll ever find and you’ll do anything to keep it going. Which I did.

Every weekend involved drinking at the least. With other comics, venue staff, or random people you meet in whatever city you’re performing in. Training stopped. Sleep disappeared. You’d get in at 4am, order fast food in bulk because why not, repeat all weekend, then drag yourself into the office on Monday. Massive lunch to deal with the hangover. By Wednesday you start to feel human again just in time for Thursday, when you’re back on the road. Rinse and repeat. It was bad.

I never rested. I couldn’t. My job depended on commission, no sick days were allowed, I told myself. Comedy was the same. I didn’t just burn the candle at both ends. I poured petrol on it.

So, when the hospital told me I had a throat infection, I was relieved. I’d gone in because I couldn’t breathe properly, but what I was really scared of was what they might tell me. What if it was something serious? What if I couldn’t go to Dubai? That was a lot of money I’d lose, and as a single-income household, that wasn’t an option. They told me to see my GP and get antibiotics. I thought, I’ll do it when I get back. I was flying in a few days, I wouldn’t get an appointment before then anyway, and it was “just” a throat infection.

What would then happen is the infection spread to my chest and lungs, made its way to my heart, and triggered dilated cardiomyopathy, and while I was on stage during the last show of the Dubai run, I went into heart failure. I didn’t know any of this at the time. All I knew was that I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t even smoke which sounds ridiculous, but that’s how I knew how bad it was. It hurt too much to smoke. Like inhaling glass while drowning.

Later that evening, I started coughing up blood. At that point, I was still convinced it was cancer. Worst night of my life. Lying there thinking, this is it. And I was only 39.

Treatment

People always ask me why I didn’t go to hospital in Dubai. The honest answer is bleak: I thought, What’s the point? I believed I was dying, and I’d rather die at home than have someone come and get my body from another country. So, I got on the plane. By pure luck, I was sat next to two paramedics who looked after me. I was so distraught that even when I landed, I didn’t want to go to hospital. I didn’t want to be told it was cancer. It’s amazing the things we’ll avoid just so we don’t have to face reality. I was made to go. Made!

I tried to play it down when I was at the hospital, but it turns out these people are trained and could see through my shallow breathing and within an hour of arriving, I was admitted and put on a list to go into ICU.

They started me on antibiotics to clear the infection, while the cardiology team focused on what was going on with my heart. Surgery was definitely on the table and, to be honest, still is because of how low my ejection fraction was. A normal heart pumps at around 70%. I knew a guy who’d been through something similar and his was 35%, and doctors weren’t sure he’d make it. Mine was 8%.

What confused everyone was that I wasn’t presenting the way they’d expect. At 8%, I shouldn’t have been able to walk, talk or even sit up yet there I was, wandering around chatting away. So they investigated, monitored me daily and took constant blood tests, trying to work out how I was upright.

There was no immediate surgery, but I was put on an aggressive drug regime – a cocktail of medications that, when read out loud, sounded less like treatment and more like I was chanting a spell. Beta blockers, blood thinners, diuretics, honestly, reading them out it felt like someone was trying to summon a demon rather than save my life. Slowly, though, it started to work. My ejection fraction began to rise. It still rises slowly, which is frustrating, but it is progress.

Different life

Beyond medication, the only thing I had control over was my lifestyle. I drink more water now than I ever did, who knew urine wasn’t meant to be orange?

Everything changes when you’re forced to face the fact you’re not here for ever. I’d look at my kids and think about how I was breaking my promise to never leave them. All I could do was hope. I walk more now, I move more, and the way I train has changed. It’s no longer about ego, punishment or trying to undo years of bad decisions in one go. I treat myself better because I know exactly what happens if I don’t.

I’m now 45 and my weekends are very different. I still love the stage, but I’ve also learned to love the quiet when the curtains come down. I don’t get angry like I used to. Things don’t bother me the same way. Life has a new meaning now.

I’m currently on tour with my third show, Life After Near Death. After the first two shows, I was anxious I’d never be able to write another show. Not now. Going through all of this gave me the confidence to stop being afraid of having something to say, even if it splits a room.

I didn’t realise how many people this story would connect with, people who’ve been through something similar, or lost someone to something like it. Now I get to stand on stage and share the joy I’ve been lucky enough to find again. And honestly? That’s been incredible.

• Emmanuel Sonubi’s Life After Near Death is on tour until March 27. Tickets available from emmanuelstandup.com