Dan Walker reveals horror cancer scare which saw him rushed to hospital after his head doubled in size

Dan Walker has revealed he was told he had cancer during a terrifying hospital stay in Poland.

The TV presenter, 46, was taken to hospital after his kidneys stopped working and he was pumped with eight litres of saline solution.

His head also doubled in size and he had to walk around naked as his body was so bloated he couldn’t fit into his boxer shorts.

Speaking on the podcast White Wine Question Time, Dan said he is forever grateful to his former colleague Richard Hughes who accompanied him to the hospital back when the scare happened in 2012.

He said: ‘I was in Poland a few years ago covering the European Championships and I had a slightly strange lump in my stomach.

Terrifying: Dan Walker has revealed he was told he had cancer during a terrifying hospital stay in Poland 

‘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 pair had a fixer with them who spoke both Polish and English and Dan asked her to confirm if he had understood the doctor right.

She said: ‘He thinks you’ve got cancer in your kidney.’

Trying to process the shocking news, Dan wondered if he should call his wife and family and tell them.

He praised Richard for remaining calm and said he was ‘very wise and daft and lovely’ that night. 

Ordeal: His head also doubled in size and he had to walk around naked as his body was so bloated he couldn’t fit into his boxer shorts (pictured in August 2023)

Scare: It turned out Dan did not have cancer but was instead battling a serious virus (pictured with Robbie Savage and Martin Keown for Match Of The Day in 2014)

Dan asked if the head consultant could look at his scan to make 100% sure it was cancer before he called his family and told them. 

He said: ‘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.’

It turned out Dan did not have cancer but was instead battling a serious virus that harmed the functioning of his kidneys.

He said: ‘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.

‘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.

‘The next day I woke up and I went to the bathroom mirror – my face, my head was about twice the size that it is at the moment.

‘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.’

Thankfully, it didn’t take long for Dan to recover and his kidneys were functioning normally again within 48 hours. 

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