Davina McCall: I will be friends with my brain surgeon for the rest of our lives

TV presenter Davina McCall has said she will be friends with the neurosurgeon who removed her brain tumour “for the rest of our lives”.

In November, the former Big Brother presenter, 57, underwent surgery to remove the benign tumour, known as a colloid cyst, which was found after she was offered a health check-up as part of her menopause advocacy work.

Discussing the surgery, she told The Times: “I set up my whole life before I went into the operating theatre knowing that, if I didn’t make it, the kids would be OK.

“I needed to go under the anaesthetic knowing I had my ducks in a row.

“It was my way of letting go. And I am so grateful for that process, because I realised through all of it that, if I were not around, my children would be on the right path.

“If this hadn’t happened to me, I’d have stayed in ‘mum mode’. I love my kids so much, but I looked at them and thought: ‘Would they be OK without me?’ And the answer was yes, and that made me so proud.

“I’ve always been a grateful person but this brain operation has supersized my gratitude.”

McCall chose her surgeon, Kevin O’Neill, after being told by a US-based surgeon that he was “brilliant”, according to The Times.

“We’re going to be friends for the rest of our lives. We are going to go out to dinner with our partners! We are GOING TO DO IT!” she said of Mr O’Neill.

Discussing their conversation pre-surgery, she said: “The temptation, of course, was to say to him: ‘I’ve got three children. Please, please keep me alive.’

“But that is quite a stress for the surgeon.

“It’s an immense pressure and what he needs to know is that I have faith in him.

“I know that he is the best at his job. I know that he wants to do the best for me.

“So I said to him: ‘You do whatever you need to do. I put all my faith in you.’ He doesn’t need me screaming at him to keep me alive.

“He needs to be in the calmest and most confident place. I wanted to empower Kevin to do the best job he could.”

After the operation, celebrity hairdresser Michael Douglas, McCall’s boyfriend, kept her followers updated on her condition while she spent time in intensive care.

The couple attended the Brit Awards together last Saturday.

McCall has long advocated on women’s health issues, and presented documentaries on contraception and the menopause.

She made her name on Big Brother between 2000 and 2010 during its Channel 4 run, and has gone on to co-present BBC Comic Relief and Sport Relief, Channel 4’s Stand Up To Cancer, The Million Pound Drop, Long Lost Family, and dating programme My Mum, Your Dad.

According to the NHS, non-cancerous brain tumours are more common in people over the age of 50, and symptoms include headaches, vision problems and drowsiness, and some can be “difficult to remove without damaging surrounding tissue”.