Escape to the Country presenter Nicki Chapman has opened up about her ongoing health struggles after she underwent surgery to remove a brain tumour in 2019, revealing she now battles with reading and concentration
Escape to the Country favourite Nicki Chapman has opened up about a devastating health struggle, disclosing that she faces difficulties with reading following brain surgery. The cherished BBC host, 59, endured an exhausting four-and-a-half-hour procedure to extract a golf ball-sized benign tumour in 2019.
While the operation was deemed successful, Nicki has been left unable to process and retain information as efficiently as she once could. Speaking on the most recent instalment of comedian Tom Price’s My Mate Bought a Toaster podcast, she confessed: “Sadly, I struggle with reading now. I can read, obviously, but my concentration is gone. I had a brain tumour, and I don’t know whether it’s age or anything, but my attention span has gone when I read. I can read, but I have to really concentrate.”
Nicki explained: “I have to learn my scripts, I just find everything takes a little bit longer. Learning my lines takes longer, retaining information takes a little bit longer.”
She described her difficulties with information retention compared to before her surgery as a “small price to pay” to remain alive. In March 2019, Nicki first became aware of her tumour’s sudden symptoms when her eyesight started to deteriorate, reports the Express.
She went on: “I couldn’t seem to move my eyes across a line of words to read them on my computer. And I struggled to type a response to emails.”
She also experienced memory problems, as she explained: “I went to do a voice-over for Escape To The Country, and I couldn’t remember the name of John, the executive producer. I’ve known him for 15 years. I had to look it up on my phone.
“Then I realised my speech was subtly affected. I was talking about a holiday we’d just had in Dubai. I could see the word Dubai in my mind, but I struggled to say it. I told myself it must be the menopause.”
Following hospital examinations, Nicki was later informed that she had a benign brain tumour the size of a golf ball on the back, left-hand side of her head “for years”. Nicki was also told that surgeons needed to operate “quite soon” on the tumour as it was “pressing on my brain”.
Nicki expressed at the time, “The NHS care I’ve had at the Charing Cross Hospital in London has been first class. Amazing.
“And I’ve found an inner strength. “My mum said, ‘I’m a tough old bird, and you’re like me, Nicki. ‘”.
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