Davina McCall makes stark dying admission after brain | UK News

The telly presenter had to face her fears when she went under the knife final 12 months to take away the colloid cyst that may have put her in a coma if she’d left it untouched. And Davina says dealing with the ticking time bomb in her head has modified her perspective on life. She confessed: “It was the best present because I’m not afraid of dying anymore. I’ve lived the life I wished and I’m not mendacity there going, ‘I wish I’d done that thing. I wish I’d done that job. I wish I’d not stayed in this relationship. I haven’t lived the life I want.’ I mean, it’s a really amazing place to get to, not being scared of dying.

She added : “I think having no regrets and feeling like you are living fully in the life you want to be in, it’s quite rare.” Davina discovered the tumour in her brain during a random health check in 2023 and says she spoke to four different neurosurgeons around the world before she agreed to have it removed in November. Fearing she might not make it off the operating table, she says she “went forensic” on her children’s lives to come to phrases with how they’d cope without her as properly as discussing with accomplice Michael Douglas.

And realising Holly, 23, Tilly, 21, and 18-year-old Chester had been thriving in life gave the 57-year-old the arrogance to go under the knife.

“I was really worried about my kids,” defined Davina, as she opened up about dealing with her mortality when medical doctors found she had a colloid cyst that may have put her in a coma if she’d not had it eliminated.

“I went forensic. I’m thinking about my children and where they were at in their life, what stage they were at. You’re only as happy as your unhappiest child, right?

“And I came to a realisation after about six months of cross-examining them about their life and telling them the whole time how much I’ve loved my life, my eldest daughter caught on.

“She was like, ‘you are not dying’. But I realised that they would be great, they’d miss me, I want to be with them, but they would be okay.

“I felt like 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.”

TV host Davina’s operation final 12 months was a full success and her restoration has been exceptional.

But as she ready to have the operation it wasn’t just her youngsters she was considering about.

Davina also reconnected with her step-mum and got here to phrases with all the ups and downs in her life including her drug habit.

Speaking at the Happy Place Festival at the weekend, she confessed: “Part of my, ‘am I okay to let go of my life?’ has been to examine all of my past. And I wouldn’t change anything because without sounding arrogant, because it isn’t, I love myself.

“I have been on a massive life journey and I’ve been through terrible struggles. We’ve been talking a lot about a calamity vitae instead of a curriculum vitae because I think when you go for a job, ‘so what you learned at school?’

“It’s like what have you learned at the University of Life? How many calamities have you been through? Because that’s where the learning comes from.

“I’ve learned that if something really hard happens, it’s a good thing.

She continued: “I was like to Michael, ‘If I make it through this brain surgery. It’s going to be the best thing that’s ever happened to me.’ The learning that I have made in the two years since I found out about it, has been so immense and enriching in my life. I wouldn’t change that for the world. But when it happened, obviously it was like another calamity coming. But do not be afraid of disasters, they will make you a better.

“How can you think your way out of it? I saw Mel Robbins the other day talking online. And I’ve heard it before, but she has this saying, ‘no one’s coming, you’ve just got yourself’. You can’t keep waiting for somebody else to come and rescue you. You’ve got to rescue yourself and when you do, oh, it feels so good and you feel so proud!”

She added: “It’s bloody hard. And that’s another thing that I’ve had to learn to not be resistant towards hard work on myself, to actually think, ‘great, a juicy bit of hard work on myself’.

“Because almost the harder the work, the more work you have to do, the bigger the reward because if you have to work harder, you are in a darker place.

“But when you see the light, the reward is so massive.

“A couple of people have said today, ‘oh, you look so well’. But it’s because I am in a happy place.

“If you are not in a happy place, you can begin again whenever you want or need to.”

Davina’s been a mainstay of British TV since exploding onto our screens when she was 25 and she’s exhibiting no indicators of slowing down anytime soon.

She’s fronting a new BBC dating series, Stranded on Honeymoon Island, her podcast Begin Again is going from strength to strength and her campaigning around menopause is helping women across the country.

And while she admits she’s always been “annoyingly enthusiastic”, she sees it as her obligation to help youthful girls.

But Davina’s wanting to her elders to embrace their eccentricities too.

She stated: “Getting older and not caring any more is a present. There’s bought to be a present with getting old because in any other case it may really feel like a loss.

“But getting old is a loss of one factor, but you gain so a lot more in one other means.

“I saw a girl earlier in a beautiful outfit. I said, ‘you look amazing’. She’s like, ‘no, I think it’s inappropriate. I’m 40. I shouldn’t really be wearing this’.

“And I was literally sweating my ass off, I literally don’t care! The more inappropriately someone dresses, the older they are, the more I love them.

“I need women 60, 70, 80, my older stateswomen, I need you to be outlandish. I need people out there shining the light for me so that life as I get older looks like it’s going to be exciting.

“And that’s what I want to do for you. I want you to look at me and go, ‘oh my God, being in my fifties is going to be great.’

“I’m at a time in my life where even if things go wrong, you don’t perceive it like that, things that go wrong are teaching you something, guiding you somewhere.

“And that is the gift of getting older. You just learn more and more. It’s so great!”

Davina also spoke in February about her brain operation saying she changed her Will to include heartfelt letters to her children ahead of her brain operation – because she feared she could die.

She said: There’s that saying, ‘A life lived in fear is a life half-lived’.

“If you do not really need to do one thing, do not do it. But if there’s one thing that you need to do, yeah, do it. Write your bucket checklist now. Write the bucket checklist now, in your thirties, and go, “What is my bucket list? Like, what do I want to do before I die? And let’s start doing it now.”

She added: “I’m grateful. Life will never be the identical again, but in somewhat a great way.”