The TV star said facing death dramatically shifted her perspective, prompting her to create an end-of-life checklist
Davina McCall has opened up about the drastic steps she took after being diagnosed with a brain tumour. The TV star found she had a rare 14-mm colloid cyst, which affects only three in every million people, during a chance health check in 2023.
Fortunately, the tumour was benign and last year, Davina had neurosurgeon Kevin O’Neill successfully remove it. But speaking at Fearne Cotton’s Happy Place Festival, she revealed how facing death dramatically shifted her perspective, prompting her to create an end-of-life checklist.
According to the Express, the ex-Big Brother host said: “I needed to get my brain in the right place where I could be calm before the operation. I had to make sure that my kids were going to be OK if I did not make it. That is all I really cared about.
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“I knew my partner, Michael, would be OK as he is a whole person, but I was really worried about my kids.” Davina and her ‘soulmate’, celebrity hairdresser Michael, have been dating since 2019, following the end of her 17-year marriage to Matthew Robertson in 2017.
Davina, who shares Holly, 23, Tilly, 21, and 18-year-old Chester with her ex, added: “I went into forensic thinking about my children and where they were at in their lives, what stage they were at. You are only happy as your unhappiest child.”
She continued: “But I realised that they would be great, they would miss me, and I want to be with them, but they would be fine. I felt I could go to sleep on the operating table and know that they were all here to help me, but I can let go of the outcome, and it was the best gift.”
If the operation had not been successful, Davina could have suffered a stroke or lost her ability to ‘hold a short-term memory beyond five minutes’. However, if the cyst had remained undetected, or if Davina had chosen not to have it removed, she could have died ‘suddenly’ without any warning or chance to say goodbye to her family and friends, according to The Times.
During an intensive five-hour surgery, a neurosurgeon cut open her skull ‘from ear to ear’, successfully extracting the 14mm colloid cyst located in the ‘third ventricle’, a deep-seated area of the brain.
Davina disclosed that ultimately, her mental checklist boiled down to accepting that her beloved family may need to carry on without her. She penned three heartfelt letters to her children in the event she did not survive.
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But now, having recovered from the operation, the mother of three insists it is the ‘best thing’ to ever happen to her. Davina continued: “I am not afraid of dying anymore. It was the biggest journey of my life. It was an amazing time.
“I have been on a massive life journey, and I have been through terrible struggles. That is where the learning comes from. If something really hard happens now, I know it is a good thing.”
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