Dan Walker will have no doubt shocked fans on Friday when he revealed the petrifying details of his cancer scare.
The 46-year-old recalled the moments leading up to an ambulance dash to the hospital on Kate Thornton's White Wine Question Time podcast. During the candid conversation, he revealed he was told he had a tumour in his stomach whilst at a hospital in Poland in 2012.
"I was in Poland a few years ago covering the European Championships and I had a slightly strange lump in my stomach.
"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.
"And a guy called Richard Hughes, who is the editor of Match Of The Day now, and a guy I'd worked with for many years, he dropped everything and came with me.
"You know times in life when you think sometimes you 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. He used the word tumour."
The duo had a designated translator, who spoke English and Polish, whom the TV host asked to confirm if he understood the doctor correctly. She said: "He thinks you've got cancer in your kidney."
Before sharing the heartbreaking news with his family, Dan requested the consultant look again to make sure his diagnosis was correct, thankfully it wasn't.
"At eight o'clock in the morning, she came in straight away and she said 'I've got good news, it's not a tumour.'" Whilst it wasn't cancer, Dan wasn't well and was unknowingly battling a serious virus in his kidneys.
"There were a series of black shadows on my kidneys. Because they went down to about 30 per cent functionality, so I had this weird sort of virus that had really affected them. After being discharged with heavy medication to try to get his kidneys working again, Dan woke up to a scary sight.
"Every part of my body was swollen and I couldn't even get my boxer shorts on. I was walking around naked, I couldn't get my pants on because my body was so bloated with this water that wasn't being processed. I was like the shape of Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters." Fans will have been relieved to hear that Dan recovered from the incident within 48 hours.
