Davina McCall undergoes surgery to remove brain tumour
15 November 2024 10:00am GMT
Davina McCall is undergoing brain surgery to remove a tumour, she has revealed.
The operation will remove a 14mm benign tumour, which was discovered during a scan a few months ago.
In a video shared on Friday, McCall asked her fans to keep her in their prayers as she announced the news.
The 57 year-old said in the clip: “I was offered a health scan, which I thought I was going to ace but it turned out I had a benign brain tumour, which is very rare, ‘three in a million’.
“I put my head in the sand for a while. It’s 14mm wide and it needs to come out because if it grows it would be bad. I’m having it removed.”
She added: “Say a prayer for me. I’m in good spirits.”
A benign brain tumour is a “mass of cells that grows relatively slowly”, which “tend to stay in one place and do not spread”, according to the NHS.
These type of tumours do not usually come back if all of it can be safely removed during surgery, the health service states. If the tumour cannot be completely removed, there’s a risk it could grow back. If this is the case, radiotherapy may be required.
Michael Douglas, McCall’s partner, will be taking over her social media channels during her recovery period.
He told fans she is in “great shape” but will be “off grid” until she’s back to full health.
Douglas wrote: “I’ll do the odd update from her account here for anyone interested. I’m sure she’ll read all the comments when she’s able to so feel free to send love [heart emoji] . The support of people is amazingly powerful. Have a great day everyone.”
McCall, the former Big Brother presenter and long-standing menopause campaigner, received the MBE from Princess Anne in an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle on Jan 31.
A constant fixture in British television, she has co-presented Comic Relief and Long Lost Family and was a judge on The Masked Singer.
She previously worked as a classical singer, restaurateur, dancer and nightclub hostess before becoming a television presenter on MTV in 1994.
Through her campaigning, McCall has been a vocal critic of NHS guidance, which claims not everyone who experiences the menopause is a woman.
In January, she criticised separate draft menopause guidelines from health chiefs that urged GPs to consider offering women cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) to treat hot flushes either instead of, or in addition to, HRT.