Tamra Judge is doing her best to stay strong, but the Real Housewives of Orange County star admits exclusively to Us Weekly that she worries about her husband Eddie Judge’s heart condition.
“I have to stay strong, but I’m super scared because I’m just afraid what if? What if? What if he has a heart attack? He has a stroke? All these things. Like the other day, he wouldn’t wake up,” the 51-year-old tells Us. “His alarm was going off and he was just laying there so peaceful. I’m like, ‘Eddie!’ And he was just laying there. I’m like, ‘Oh my god, he died!’ I’m like, ‘Eddie!’ Like that.”
Tamra explains that Eddie then jumped up and she told him his alarm went off.
“He’s like, ‘Oh.’ I’m like, ‘It happened. It happened,’” Tamra tells Us. “I always have this fear like something bad’s going to happen to him, so it’s kind of scary, but I try to be a little bit more positive than that.”
Eddie underwent his sixth heart procedure and third ablation in September after he was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation. The Bravo star tells Us that her husband is “actually doing really well.” She also notes he’s off his heart medication for the first time in a year and is “just on blood thinners right now.”
“We have our figures crossed,” she tells Us, crediting switching doctors halfway through treatment as one of the reasons for his improvement. “Eddie’s problem was he has persistent a-fib, possibly a heart condition for many years [and he] didn’t know about it. They had to go into an area of his heart that they don’t like to, as the doctor put it, normally to go. It’s called the left atrial appendage and they usually go into old women’s hearts. So he was not the candidate. He said, ‘We’ll do it if we have to, but there’s other long-term problems when you go in there.’ We’re dealing with that now.”
RHOC season 13, which is currently airing, has documented Eddie’s health journey. Tamra tells Us that the CUT Fitness instructor was “in denial” when they first started filming the latest season.
“He went through many emotions,” she explains. “When he first was diagnosed, they were like, ‘You know what? You’re young. We’ll probably get this.’ And didn’t think that it was going to be as long a road as it was. He started to get discouraged. Then he got scared.”
She adds: “This is the longest he’s gone without his heart freaking out.”
The Real Housewives of Orange County airs on Bravo Mondays at 9 p.m. ET.
