BBC Breakfast star Diana Moran has revealed she has lived with a brain tumour for 16 years.
The fitness expert, 86, who is known as the Green Goddess, battled breast cancer in 1988 and had a double mastectomy, before being diagnosed with skin cancer in 1999.
She has now revealed doctors found a brain tumour almost two decades ago and she is currently on drugs to try to remove it.
Moran, who shot to fame presenting a fitness segment on BBC’s Breakfast Time in the ‘80s, opened up about her health on Best magazine’s Suddenly Single podcast.
“I have to say, I have been very unwell for the past six months, on and off, I've been very unwell. I've got a brain tumour. It kicked off through another operation that I was having,” she said.
“Possibly the antibiotics that I was given, and everything kicked off, and I thought that my life had come to the end.”
Moran went on: “Three times, we called ambulances, 999. It was when I was sent home again eventually, from hospital, I had to rest.
“There was no way I could do anything else, I had to have help with stairs, toilet seats, walkers, all sorts of things. I couldn't stand by myself at all. It was very, very frightening.”
When asked to elaborate on the brain tumour, the former model explained: “I've had the brain tumour for 16 years.
“It was found when I was doing a run in Hyde Park. All those years ago, a charity run, and something went wrong. They took me to hospital and then they found I'd got a brain tumour.”
She explained that it has been a tough year for her with the death of her partner of 10 years Robin, her 17-year-old cat Maisie, moving to a smaller home, and suffering some health scares.
“Okay, I've lived with [the tumour] perfectly happily, but with this, the death of Robin, the other operation that I had to have, which was for cancers, I had some cancers on my leg and it was a bit dramatic, because I think I had a reaction to the antibiotics, that's what we think,” she said.
“Then it seemed to have kicked off the brain as well.
“Since then, I've been backwards and forwards to specialists, it's been decided that at age 87, coming up to, it's too old for a big operation.
“So I'm a bit of an experiment on some drugs at the minute. Let's leave it as that.”
She recently decided to move from Surrey to an “independent living” community in Somerset, close to her sons Nick and Tim, as well as her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
The broadcaster said: “I don’t know how much longer I’ve got. None of us do. So every day is special.
“You have to try and be positive and think what’s ahead of you. Feeling old is your choice. If you are always looking back you probably are going to feel old.”
