'This Morning' Expert Michelle Elman, 33, Shares Heartbreaking Health Update as She Admits She Struggles to Go On

She has survived brain tumours and emergency surgeries, but now Michelle Elman is opening up about a fight that has left even her questioning whether she will make it out alive.

Five months into what she calls the most brutal stretch of her life, "This Morning" expert and life coach Michelle Elman says she is facing uncertainty unlike anything before.

The TV star, admired for her fearless honesty about body confidence and self-acceptance, shared a video update this week.

And for the first time, the 33-year-old admitted she does not know if she will make it through. Lying in her hospital bed, Michelle spoke directly to followers.

She began by challenging a belief many cling to without question. Longevity, she said, is not the same as living fully. Five months of relentless health crises have forced her to confront that difference directly.

Before each surgery, she said she has had frank conversations with her best friend, her dad and her sister about what truly matters if things go wrong.

“I don't want to live if I can't do the things I love,” she said, naming paddleboarding, playing squash, going on TV, and writing her books.

She admitted she had always assumed she would die young and never expected to live past 21. Now, after months of complications and setbacks, she said she is no longer certain she will survive this chapter.

A Body Under Extreme Strain

In a separate update shared to her Stories, Michelle described what hydrocephalus feels like inside her body. “A body can only take so much," she wrote.

Then she explained:

“I’m an adult so my skull can’t grow. So instead it feels like your skull is crushing your brain. It’s now happened twice for over three months and you are just trapped in your body with no escape to the extent when they cut into my body, water came gushing out because it had nowhere to go.”

Born with hydrocephalus and later diagnosed with a brain tumour, she has undergone 19 surgeries in total. Fifteen of those took place before she turned 20.

The latest ordeal began in November when an MRI revealed a new cyst on her brain. Doctors also discovered that the magnet implanted in her skull to regulate fluid flow needed to be replaced.

What was initially described as unavoidable but not urgent developed into months of complications, emergency hospital admissions, and stalled recoveries.

A critical moment came in February.

Michelle went to the hospital expecting a routine valve adjustment. Instead, doctors told her she would not be going home. The pressure inside her brain had surged to 70. A healthy reading is typically between 5 and 15 mmHg in adults.

She was warned that within 24 hours, she would either lose consciousness or go blind. By the time she arrived, she was already beginning to lose her sight.

Her shunt, the tube that drains excess fluid from the brain, has since been relocated to her pleural cavity, the space around her ribs, after her stomach failed to absorb the fluid properly.

She emerged from surgery with fresh scars along her neck and collarbone. Crucially, she did not require further intervention on her brain.

Five months on, the recovery is still ongoing.

'I Have Come to Terms With My Mortality'

At 11 years old, she flatlined during surgery and experienced what she describes as a near-death experience. She recalls floating above her body, overwhelmed not by terror but by stillness.

The memory has stayed with her ever since.

“Being aware of my mortality my whole life means that over the last five months, I have come to terms with my mortality,” she said. “So if this is it for me, I have lived a good life and it's been an honour to be surrounded by so much love.”

She made clear she has not given up and intends to fight with everything she has.

But she also questioned whether survival at any cost should always be viewed as the ultimate measure of strength, and whether acceptance can exist alongside courage.

Challenging the Narrative Around Size and Survival

Michelle also addressed the commentary she has faced for years as a plus-size woman living with complex health conditions.

Critics, she said, have long predicted she would die young because of her size. But she has pointed out that her medical challenges began before she was one year old.

She pushed back against the idea that longevity alone defines a life’s value. Living fully, she suggested, matters more than living long.

In the caption accompanying her video, she questioned the widely accepted belief that survival is simply about mindset or fighting spirit. She admitted she is no longer convinced that enduring maximum pain for as long as possible is always the answer.

Fans Rally Around Her, Yet Not All Agree With Her

Support flooded in from followers, many sharing messages of love and encouragement.

“Oh Michelle, awful to see you in so much pain,” one follower wrote. Another added, “Love you. I was wondering why I hadn't seen you on my feed lately. Praying for healing. You have been tremendously precious and valuable in all that you've shared. I love every minute of what you create. Sending you so many prayers of healing and love.”

Others saw her message differently.

“You can live well with disability. I know it's a shock when your body and brain don't do what you want them to do, but wishing death as an alternative is extreme. The ableism normalised by society is incredibly sad and problematic,” one commenter responded.

For now, Michelle is taking life hour by hour.

Her best friend left work to sit beside her hospital bed. Her sister was there when she woke from surgery. Even in uncertainty, she says she refuses to stop noticing the love surrounding her.

In a follow-up update, she explained that the only way she knows how to cope is to live as fully as possible in the fragile spaces between hospitalisations.

A Heartbreak She Carried Quietly

Alongside her health battle, Michelle has also navigated personal upheaval.

In April 2023, just 24 hours after getting engaged to the man she called the love of her life, Michelle discovered he had been unfaithful.

The relationship had lasted three years. They had shared a home for two. She had written about him in her dating book and deliberately kept his identity private to protect him.

Then came the message.

The morning after the proposal, another woman contacted her with screenshots. One phone call later, the future she believed in was shattered. Speaking later on "This Morning," she revealed she spent the first day in shock. By 4 a.m. the following morning, she had made her decision.

What she wanted others to understand was simple. The shame belongs entirely to the person who betrays, not the person who trusts.

Even as she faced surgeries, hospital stays, and the reality of rising brain pressure, she carried that heartbreak quietly. For a woman who has built her career helping others rebuild self-worth after devastation, it was a reminder that no one is immune from pain.

As she carries on with treatment and recovery, she is also continuing the work that has defined her public life.