Call the Midwife star Miranda Hart admitted her horror battle with Lyme disease "took everything" from her in a heartbreaking admission. The sitcom star, 52, opened up to fans about her condition in her tell-all memoir I Haven't Been Entirely Honest With You after keeping it secret for years - and also came clean about her secret marriage to husband Richard Fairs.

Now she has confessed that the illness has changed her for good, telling The Mirror: "When an illness takes everything away from your life, it rammed home to me sayings like, 'You are not what you do', and 'You can't take it with you', and all that stuff. It was so easy to hear. Until you are older and you are faced with suffering, you don't realise how true that is."

Miranda, who played Chummy in Call the Midwife, admitted she is now "much better at taking one day at a time" after being faced with ill health.

Her condition went undiagnosed for 33 years after being caused by a tick bite in her teenage years, when she was in Virginia, USA.

She suffered joint pain, extreme fatigue, cognitive difficulties and recurring infections. Doctors initially misdiagnosed her conditions as anxiety related, but after Miranda collapsed at home and became confined to her bed, she was diagnosed with reactivated Lyme disease.

She said: "It was very interesting being known for playing a very jolly, playful character, which is of course part of me. But then collapsing with illness and not being able to be that at all. I really did feel that. Before I became unwell, there was that sense like you have got to be 'on'."

Thankfully, her husband Richard has been there through it all - after they originally met when he was called out to remove mould from Miranda's home.

She said despite the unexpected "suffering", she has now found someone who "completely understands and gets me".