Katie Hopkins prepares for brain surgery to cure epilepsy which has 'plagued' her life

Hopkins explained the procedure to fans in her Mail Online column
Preparing for surgery: Katie Hopkins
Ian Forsyth/Getty
Emma Powell23 February 2016
The Weekender

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Katie Hopkins told fans that she will “see [them] on the other side” as she prepared for brain surgery to treat the epilepsy which has “plagued” her life.

Hopkins, 41, will today have her head shaved for the procedure which will see her spend four to eight hours in theatre followed by 24 hours in intensive care.

Writing in her Mail Online column, she said that despite the risk of weakness in her left arm and leg and the odds not being “great”, she is undergoing the procedure because “one day my epilepsy will get the better of me. And I am not prepared to sit around and wait for that day to come”.

The controversial columnist explained how surgeons will remove a part of her brain that she has always seen as a “weakness”.

She wrote: “The thing which saw me slung out of the army after completing the Commissioning Course at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, and the reason why my arms have dislocated 42 times in three years.

“I always wanted to be the first female General. But I understand an epileptic with a rifle was never my finest idea.”

Hopkins said her three children are “scared”, but that she had waited until they are “old enough to be brave and smart enough to remember the things I want them to know” like why girls are weird, how you can’t fool a dentist into thinking you’ve brushed your teeth and the importance of spelling.

She continued: “My children don't want me to have an operation because they are scared for me. But I have said to them all: Don't be scared for me. I am not scared. I have lived a happy life, made complete by the three of you.

“I am lucky. I wake up every day feeling glad to be alive. And that is a gift not everyone has been given.”

Last year the former Apprentice star penned an open letter to her children in which she revealed that epilepsy will most likley end her life early and revealed the disorder had seen her hospitalised 26 times in just nine months.

In November she announced that she would need two teeth removed after an epileptic fit caused her to collapse in the street.

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