Dan Walker – who hosts 5 News on Channel 5 – was once incorrectly told that he had a cancerous tumour in his kidneys.
The 47-year-old made the shocking confession during a podcast appearance last year.
5 News host Dan Walker on cancer scare
Last November saw Dan appear on Kate Thornton’s White Wine Question Time podcast.
During his appearance on the pod, the former Strictly star opened up about how he found “a slightly strange lump in my stomach” during a work assignment in Poland.
“I felt my breathing was changing a little bit and I went to the medical centre in the broadcast centre there, and within two and a half minutes I was in the back of an ambulance on my way to a Polish A&E,” he explained.
Editor of Match of the Day, Richard Hughes, was with Dan at the time, and “dropped everything” to be by his colleague’s side in hospital.
It was here that Dan received a massive scare.
5 News host Dan Walker talks incorrect cancer diagnosis
Dan then continued, saying: “You know times in life when you think sometimes you just need someone to hold your hand?”
“It did get a bit scary that night – about two o’clock in the morning a Polish consultant came in and told me that I had cancer because they’d seen some shadows on my kidney, and he used the word tumour,” he said.
Dan then asked the consultant: “I don’t mean this to sound rude in any way, but is the head consultant around, and can they have a look at the scan? Because if I tell my family I’ve got cancer, I need to know 100 per cent.”
Six hours later, he got the all-clear. “At eight o’clock in the morning, she came in and she said it’s not a tumour,” he said.
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Dan on his recovery
Although Dan thankfully didn’t have cancer, his recovery from his kidney problem was a gruelling one.
He recalled having to have eight litres of saline pumped into his body to help restart his kidney function. This caused extensive bloating.
“The next day I woke up and I went to the bathroom mirror, part of me wishes I had taken a photograph but I didn’t because my face, my head was about twice the size that it is at the moment,” he said.
“Every part of my body was swollen and I couldn’t even get my boxer shorts on,” he then added.
Read more: Dan Walker shuts down a return to BBC Breakfast as he admits he ‘misses’ his co-stars
5 News at 5 airs daily from 5pm on Channel 5 and My5.
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