BBC reporter Jeremy Bowen has said he’s “absolutely determined” to look on the bright side of life – three years after he was diagnosed with bowel cancer.
The 61-year-old journalist, who is the BBC’s Middle East editor, once revealed his cancer felt “scarier than being bombed”.
However, he’s now been in remission for three years after undergoing surgery, and he’s quite intent on keeping his journalism job.
Opening up about his cancer battle, Jeremy said: “Anyone who wants to fill my role, I have to disappoint them and say I’m trying to keep going,
“I’m only 61 and, as you get older, you tend to think that experience counts for more. Funny that.
(Image: BBC)
Speaking about his 2019 diagnosis, Jeremy explained that although it was a serious tumour, he’s been clear since going in for chemotherapy.
Doctors had found a lump during a colonoscopy in October 2019.
He told Radio Times: “It was a serious tumour.”
“I had a lot of chemotherapy and I’ve been clear since my surgery.”
The BBC star later remarked he goes for routine check-ups at the Royal Marsden Hospital.
(Image: PA)
Jeremy added: “I’m absolutely determined to look on the bright side.
“I have been in violent places where it doesn’t take much and you’re dead, and that feeling has been deepened by having had cancer.”
Recalling his symptoms, Jeremy said he felt “funny pains” in his back and legs while out in Iraq back in 2018, but he lacked the usual symptoms of cancer.
With his new lease of life, Bowen urged others to get checked.
He previously told an NHS expo conference in Manchester: “In 1995 I remember lying in the snow in Grozny in Chechnya wearing my flak jacket and helmet.
(Image: BBC)
“The Russians were bombing the place and buildings were on fire and those planes were going over. I was thinking, ‘Any minute now I’m going to die’.
“Cancer is different — not in a good way. Cancer is insidious.
“It is always somewhere in your mind what those cells may or may not be doing.”
He added: “If you’re in a dangerous place, you can always get somewhere safer, but if you have cancer, you can’t get anywhere safer.”
Jeremy’s full interview is available in the Radio Times.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
