Lange celebrates birthday with bottle of Diet Coke

Former Labour prime Minister David Lange woke on his 63rd birthday today and asked for a bottle of Diet Coke for breakfast.

Two days after his lower right leg was amputated because of complications from diabetes, Mr Lange celebrated his birthday in a recovery ward at Auckland's Middlemore Hospital.

"His birthday request was a bottle of diet Coke. I don't think he was being funny. He loves diet Coke," his wife Margaret Pope said.

She said today Mr Lange had a pump to control his own pain relief and he was expected to have a more comfortable day.

She said the end-stage kidney failure which required nightly peritoneal dialysis, did not make him a candidate for a kidney transplant.

- NZPA