amy winehouseAfter a tuberculosis scare earlier this week, Amy Winehouse is now said to have been diagnosed with emphysema, with doctors telling her she may need a permanent oxygen mask to keep breathing unless she gives up using drugs.

Amy’s dad Mitch Winehouse told the Sunday Mirror: “To think this could be my beautiful 24-year-old daughter’s life is preposterous. But if drugs mean more to her than breathing properly, then so be it.

“But the doctors have told her if she goes back to smoking drugs it won’t just ruin her voice, it will kill her. It’s been a tough week.”

Amy was hospitalised after collapsing at her London home on Monday afternoon and is said to have undergo a barrage of tests to find out what had caused the problem.

Mitch, who accompanied Amy to the private London Clinic and has been at her bedside since then, explained: “When we got to the hospital a room was ready. Several doctors came in and checked to make sure she didn’t need any emergency treatment.

“They put her on a drip straight away because she was dehydrated. She said, ‘Don’t worry about me, Dad. I know I’ve got to stop taking drugs now’.

“At the hospital we found she’d been awake for 48 hours. We can only speculate she’d been taking drugs all that time. She curled up in bed and went to sleep. In between tests, she slept for almost three days solid.

“Amy’s now had every scan in the book - for her brain, on her lungs, her heart. She’s having tests every day to monitor her heart rate.

“When she went into hospital she had irregular heartbeats. I was messing around and picked up a stethoscope and listened to her chest myself. It was all over the place. But they’ve now sorted that out with medication. That was likely to have been the drugs. But one step back, and it could be fatal.”

The doctors though are particularly worried about problems with her chest: “The doctors have said that if she had continued the way she was going she could have ended up an invalid - she wouldn’t have been able to breathe.

“She’s got emphysema. It’s in its early stages, but had it gone on for another month they painted a very vivid picture of her sitting there like an old person with a mask on her face struggling to breathe.

“With smoking the crack cocaine and the cigarettes her lungs are all gunked up. There are nodules around the chest and dark marks. She’s got 70 per cent lung capacity.”

But he added that she still may be up and ready to perform at the Glastonbury Festival next weekend: “If she hadn’t done recent shows in Moscow and Portugal she could have been dead by now. She abstains and regulates her drug use when she has to do a show. When she’s been inactive work-wise then that’s when the problems really start.

“My family have been criticised for not doing enough for Amy. Some say we should put her in a room and throw away the key but that’s against the law. In our limited way, we are doing the best we can and we are being guided by the doctors and psychologists.

“There’s no need to cry yet. If, God forbid, doctors said they can’t help her, then that’s when we can have a good cry. But if she doesn’t go back to drugs then she can lead this magnificent life. With her husband Blake too, if he gets clean as well.”

“We are praying that that’s what Amy really wants. She seems resolute. I’ve started to see my old Amy back. We’ll just have to see how great her resolution is.”