‘It makes me cry’

Nicki Chapman previously opened up about her terrifying brain tumour ordeal.

The BBC presenter – who is on Escape To The Country today (September 21) – recalled a scary ordeal that saw her speech start to slur. She also started to have problems with her vision.

Nicki was then rushed into emergency surgery where it was discovered she had a brain tumour.

The TV star opened up in a recent interview (Credit: CoverImages.com)

Nicki Chapman on brain tumour battle

In an interview last summer, Nicki revealed how after getting rushed into surgery, the tumour – which was the size of a golf ball – was found to be benign.

However, the TV star admitted she knows how close she came to dying during the ordeal which happened in 2019.

“It makes me cry. I have put my own tumour in a filing cabinet. You do this with a lot of things in life — it will always be there, but I don’t need to keep opening it I won’t let it define me,” she told The Times.

Nicki Chapman ‘didn’t want to give up life’

Nicki added: “I have had an amazing life and once the bombshell of the tumour dropped, I thought, I don’t want to give this life up. But if this is it? Well — how lucky have I been? And that sounds so glossy, but I was born with the glass half-full. I found a strength to deal with it. It was either take me now or let me live.”

Following the ordeal, Nicki is now a patron for the Brain Tumour Charity and released her memoir So Tell Me What You Want.

“My symptoms were very sudden, over 24 hours,” she told the Brain Tumours Charity in 2020. “Initially doctors thought I’d had a stroke but scans revealed a golf-ball-sized meningioma.

“It’s the initial shock of diagnosis and then the shock when you tell people that’s even more distressing. It’s like a slap. When you have to ring people – your family – and tell them; it’s just hideous,” she explained.

Thankfully the tumour was benign (Credit: BBC)

Nicki Chapman reveals brain tumour vanished

Nicki then revealed in 2022 that she was given the shock news that the growth had vanished four months prior.

She said on the White Wine Question Time podcast: “Back in October I was having my yearly scan with my fantastic consultant, who he knows that I adore him.”

“The amazing consultant rang me and said: ‘The tumour, Nicki, has gone. For the moment it’s disappeared.’”

She added: “I was sobbing. And he was like: ‘Nicki, Nicki.’ I’m like: ‘No, no, no,’ I said: ‘Do we know why?’ He said: ‘No, these things happen.’ I get a bit teary just thinking about it. And they don’t know why. And obviously I’ve still got to be monitored because these things have habits of changing.”