A woman who used to love salad and fruit woke up from an operation to remove a rare tumour craving her first ever McDonald's.

Belle Gray, from Ramsgate, says before her brain surgery she wasn’t a fan of chocolate, cakes or chicken nuggets but now she “loves junk”.

Despite having never had a meal from the fast food giant before, the NHS exercise educator chose a McNugget meal as her first taste of food after being tube fed in hospital.

The 60-year-old told KentOnline: “Something I found that was really odd was when I came home, I had never ever eaten a McDonald's in my life or a chicken McNugget but the first thing that I wanted was a McDonald's. What’s that about?

"I had it and it was lovely, absolutely lovely.”

Other than her surgery, Ms Gray suggests her McDonald's cravings might have come from subliminal messaging.

“All I can put it down to is I had a television in my room and I think it might have been the advertising," she said.

Ms Gray, who describes her changing tastes as “very peculiar”, has also found she’s gone off the healthy snacks she used to enjoy.

"My tastes have changed but other than that I’m still the same," she said.

"I used to eat a lot of fruit and salad. They don't taste the same anymore - now they taste of salt.

“It’s very odd. Last night, as an example, I had a crumpet with some jam on it and it tasted like parsnips.”

In January 2020, Belle started to have strange symptoms. Her head ached and her legs started to "ignore" her instructions.

Just a week later she was in London’s King's College Hospital receiving life-altering brain surgery to remove an extremely rare tumour.

The tumour, a hemangioblastoma, is not particularly rare on its own - but Belle’s was located in the fourth ventricle of her brain, making her one of less than ten people globally with this condition.

This unusual location made the removal of the growth extremely difficult and the operation took 50 people to complete and lasted more than 12 hours.

The area of Ms Gray’s brain that was most affected controls speech and balance. So after her three-month stay recovering at King’s, she spent a further six months in rehab.

She spent her time there challenging herself to walk again. She can now walk with the aid of a Zimmer frame - but she’s determined to keep improving.

As a former educator working to prevent people developing type II diabetes, Ms Gray is familiar with the hazards of an unbalanced diet.

She says despite her new craving she’s trying to keep a handle on her junk food consumption, particularly as she fears making her goal to walk with a stick rather than a zimmer frame even harder.

The former exercise physiologist said: “If I’m heavier it’s gonna be harder - because if I get fatter there’s more of me to move. So I’m very mindful of how much I eat because I’m not burning it up.

“Before I was on my feet all day, I was very active."

She says she has found learning to walk similar to the steps she practised when she was a professional dancer.

“It’s hard because balance is not the same thing as strength," said Belle.

"Balance is like a baby, they walk with really wide legs and they fall over. Well that’s what I was like, walking really wide.

“I’m always thinking while I’m walking, bend your knees, heel to toe, don’t lean forward. So it’s very very hard but it’s like dancing to me.”

The rarity of her condition makes the future uncertain. But Belle remains determined to dance again.

In the meantime, she embraces the positives she can with her new-found appreciation for sweet treats.

She said: “I’ve got a long way to go. All I’ve been told is two things - which is that it takes a long time and we don’t know.

"Unfortunately they just don’t know, which is fair enough. If they don’t know they don’t know.”