Nicki Chapman says she still struggles with reading after her brain tumour surgery, and the problem now reaches into work she has done for 25 years on television. She said learning scripts takes longer, and retaining information has slowed too.
May 2019 and the scan
In May 2019, Chapman was recovering from a knee operation when she lost her vision and her speech became slurred. Doctors first thought she had had a stroke, but scans showed a golf-ball-sized meningioma, and she later underwent a four-and-a-half-hour operation to remove the non-cancerous tumour.
She has since described the diagnosis as a shock that arrived over 24 hours. In 2020, she said: “My symptoms were very sudden, over 24 hours. Initially, doctors thought I’d had a stroke, but scans revealed a golf-ball-sized meningioma.”
Reading, scripts and concentration
Recently, Chapman said the operation changed how she works day to day. “Sadly, I struggle with reading now. I can read, obviously, but my concentration is gone,” she said. She added: “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.”
That is the practical consequence for a presenter whose job depends on absorbing copy quickly and holding it in her head long enough to deliver it cleanly. Chapman said she has to really concentrate when she reads, and she also said she does not know whether the problem is age or something else.
Dave Shackleton and the long view
Chapman has been on British television for 25 years, first as a judge on Pop Idol and Popstars and later from 2009 on Escape to the Country. She met Dave Shackleton while working at RCA Records, and the pair exchanged vows in 1999.
Earlier this month, the couple marked 27 years of marriage. Chapman’s latest comments do not rewrite the surgery that removed the tumour, but they do show the cost that can linger after the operation is over: the work goes on, yet the reading still takes effort.
