Channel 5 presenter Dan Walker, 46, has bravely shared his experience of a health scare that saw him rushed to the hospital. The former Strictly Come Dancing star was in Poland for the European football championships in 2012 when he noticed a 'strange' lump in his stomach and changes in his breathing.
Before he knew it, he was being whisked off to accident and emergency in Poland with his colleague Richard Hughes by his side. Once at the hospital, he underwent tests and was told he had shadows in his kidney, leading doctors to suspect he had cancer.
Dan revealed on the podcast White Wine Question Time: "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."
He said that Richard Hughes dropped everything to go with him as he needed "someone to hold his hand".
Recalling the scary night, he said a Polish consultant told him that he had cancer "because they'd seen some shadows" on his kidney.
The TV star then requested for the head consultant to see the scan before breaking the news to his family. The consultant then confirmed it wasn't a tumour.
The journalist explained: "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. It's such a strange night because they then came in and they pumped eight litres of saline fluid into my body to try and get my kidney to start again," he shared. "The next day they let me go home, they gave me drugs to line my stomach and these really heavy drugs to try and get the kidneys started again."
Dan said the next day he woke up and looked in the mirror to find that his head was "about twice the size" and every part of his body was swollen.
"I was like the shape of Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters." After a tough 48 hours, Dan's kidneys began to work again and the swelling reduced.
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