Will Foxtel presenter Andrew Winter make Logies history?

ANDREW Winter was tucked up in bed when this year’s TV Week Logie nominations were announced just around the corner from his Gold Coast home.

Filming for 11 months a year would be reason enough to put his feet up, but that’s only part of the unusual journey to the 2018 awards for the first Foxtel presenter to be nominated for the Gold Logie.

It all began on a Friday two weeks before his Gold and Silver nominations would be announced as the Selling Houses Australia and Love It Or List It host was taking some time out.

“I was with a friend at lunch and thought I’d bit my lip, because it felt a bit funny,” Winter tells BW Magazine.

“It felt like there was a bit of a lump there. After lunch, I went home and thought, ‘Oh, that’s a bit strange’.”

And, like many men when it comes to health matters, he admits, with a laugh: “I took no notice of it, of course.”

Nearing the end of an extensive renovation of his luxury Hope Island home, the 52-year-old former real estate agent, turned TV star went about finishing off the work.

“That’s when I realised that one of my eyes was constantly running, all down my cheek. So I looked in the mirror again and my eyes were wide open,” he says.

“I was basically winking at myself. My left eye would blink and the other was open in a very strange way. I figured out later it looked wide open because the lid had started to droop.”

With his wife Caroline and two youngest daughters, Daisy, 16, and Mia, 13, away, and his eldest Olivia having moved to Dubai to work for Emirates airline, Winter tried not to panic, but feared he was suffering a stroke.

“I thought, ‘This isn’t right,’ and my mouth was getting worse. I had no pain, but I thought, ‘I’m having a stroke, so my legs and arms are going to go next.’ ”

After calling his wife, she told him to ring an ambulance and warn landscapers working in the family’s garden not to turn it away.

“And from there,” he says, “Australia’s healthcare system took care of me … it was flipping amazing.”

Rushed to Gold Coast’s University hospital, within 20 minutes of presenting to emergency, he’d undergone a CT scan, with doctors diagnosing him Bell’s Palsy — a condition that affects facial nerves and muscle control.

He would spend 24 hours in their care to rule out a more serious stroke or brain conditions.

What triggers Bell’s Palsy isn’t clear, but it is thought to be affected by stress or a viral infection.

The paralysis can disappear as quickly as it came, or not at all — clearly cause for concern to Winter, as the face of two top-rating Lifestyle Channel programs.

“The implications for me that weekend were 12 people’s flights to Adelaide got cancelled because we were all doing a shoot in South Australia,” he says.

“I remember being there in the hospital on the Friday saying, ‘Will I be right to go to work on Monday?’ and they said, ‘Why are you even asking that? You might not be going for months’.”

His recovery, while daunting, was a best-case scenario, with Winter seeing improvements within a few weeks.

In the meantime, he kept his condition secret, covering up symptoms in public by wearing sunglasses and telling people his mouth paralysis was because he had “just been to the dentist”.

So when the Logies nominations were confirmed and his name was among the Gold contenders for Australia’s most popular personality, he admits he went into shock.

“(To win) would be amazing, but I’ve got some pretty tough competition. I don’t (think I’ll win), just because I don’t want to do a thankyou speech afterwards,” he laughs.

TV Week Logie awards air 7pm tomorrow on Nine

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