In a chat with The Daily Telegraph, Patti confessed what it was like to see her husband on the morning of his operation.
“I came in on Saturday at 6.30am and I saw him before he was operated on. I have never seen anybody in more pain," she admitted.
"I just felt he could not go through pain like he was going through for much longer."
Patti described Bert's surgery as a "long day and a long wait" and spoke of her husband's fighting spirit, saying he chose to do the life-changing surgery because "he has so much to live for".
"This is not a death sentence. He is lucky; he has got family all around him. The grandkids mean the world to him," she said.
The news regarding the TV WEEK Gold Logie winner's harrowing ordeal broke via Peter Ford, where he said Bert's health concerns began around Christmas with an infection in his toe.
"It got worse … he was seeing doctors and specialists and they couldn't seem to get it right, it kept on spreading," Peter said.
"Basically he was told last week, you have a couple of months to live, or if you have your leg amputated, you'll probably have a few years. So, he agreed to have the leg amputated on Saturday."
He then went on to describe it as a "life or death decision that was presented" to the star, and one that would impact the rest of his life with wife, Patti.
"It's a big decision for anyone to make, but it's also a practical thing, because they live in a two-storey place with the bedrooms and the bathrooms upstairs, so they're now having to convert the house downstairs because Patti doesn't want him to go into a nursing home," he said.