Health fears confirmed for EastEnders’ Denise as worrying symptoms develop

EastEnders’ Denise Fox (Diane Parish) has always seemed pretty indestructible, hasn’t she?

She survived an abusive relationship with alcoholic Owen Turner (Lee Ross), lived through the tragic death of her fiancé, Kevin Wicks (Phil Daniels) then wound up engaged to, and imprisoned by, serial killer Lucas Johnson (Don Gilet).

She suffered brutal poverty, had a fling with Phil Mitchell (Steve McFadden), resulting in a pregnancy and putting her child up for adoptionbefore reclaiming him from the gangster granny he’d grown up with.

She juggled a relationship with Jack Branning (Scott Maslen) and a fling with Ravi Gulati (Aaron Thiara) before suffering psychosis in the aftermath of her involvement in Keanu Taylor’s (Danny Walters) grisly death.

Since then, she’s been a pillar of unwavering strength for her pseudo-father, Patrick Trueman (Rudolph Walker), as he navigated the murder of his son, Anthony (Nicholas Bailey), as well as the emergence of his grandchildren, Jasmine Fisher (Indeyarna Donaldson-Holness) and Josh Goodwin (Joshua Vaughan), the former of which struck the killing blow.

Yeah, she’s a tough cookie is our Denise, but she’s recently been feeling less than spiffing!

In the aftermath of Sam Mitchell’s (Kim Medcalf) all clear results following a cancer check up, she and Denise ruminated over the importance of keeping up with their health and checking up on any symptoms that present.

To that end, Denise admitted that she’d felt ‘knackered’ recently and thus intended to make an appointment with her GP for a ‘check-up’. While fans immediately suspected the worst and predicted a serious health complication and potential death for the icon, the fact that she was shown as a potential bride for Max Branning (Jake Wood) in the New Year flashforward pretty much guarantees that we won’t be losing a legend in the near future.

Though, it becomes clear that there’s something wrong next week, as episodes see her continue to struggle with tiredness.

Sam discovers Diane asleep in her salon, Fox & Hair, and provides support for her as she worries about what could be going on with her health. When Sam checks in on her later in the week, she confirms that she’s booked a GP appointment to get the bottom of things.

But the question remains, what’s happening to Denise? Will it have any bearing on the emergence of her daughter, the former ‘Squiggle’, Libby (Belinda Owusu) at New Years?

I guess we’ll have to keep watching!