I feel very grateful for the cancer treatment I had. I probably cried twice and what got tome was the kindness of the staff. I’m just glad the NHS was thereto save my life
TELLY NEWSMAN DAVID COWAN ON DE
TWO weeks ago, TV journalist David Cowan had one of the best meals of his life – fish and chips – to celebrate the all-clear from cancer. During treatment to tackle the disease in his tonsils, he was fed through a tube and radiation robbed him of taste. Food became the stuff of fantasy. David said: “I always said, if I was going to get shot at dawn tomorrow, my last meal would be a fish supper. All the way through treatment, that’s what I thought about. It was fantastic to sit down to that celebratory fish supper because it symbolised getting through a grim experience.”
David, 50, is one of the best known faces on Scottish television and as chief reporter at STV, he has covered major events from the Lockerbie trial to the cases of serial killers Angus Sinclair and Peter Tobin.
The father of two was diagnosed with cancer in December last year and contracted the disease through the human papilloma virus (HPV).
He is a modest man and reluctant to become the story but he is speaking out to raise awareness, to express his thanks to the NHS and to contribute his experience to the debate over whether young boys should now be vaccinated against HPV.
There is some evidence to show HPV is passed through sexual contact, including kissing, and can lie dormant for years.
This week, the British Medical Association’s annual conference called for children to be vaccinated against HPV while at primary school.
Currently, girls from age 11 at secondary schools across Scotland are offered the vaccination but the rates of head and neck cancer in men will soon overtake cervical cancer.
The soaring rates have brought increased pressure for jabs to be given to boys, despite health officials’ claims that such a move would not be cost-effective.
At the end of October last year, a few weeks after his 50th birthday, David noticed a lump, the “size of a hazelnut” just below his jawline.
He googled “hard lump in neck” and, inevitably, cancer came up.
The possibility was particularly devastating for David as two years before his wife Vicki had been diagnosed with breast cancer.
Fortunately, her cancer was caught early and was operable but the ordeal had been emotionally and physically gruelling for the couple and their 13-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son.
To have cancer in the family twice seemed inconceivably unlucky.
Despite her own traumatic experience, Vicki was confident the lump would be benign but told him to get it checked to ease his mind.
He said: “I was worried from day one because of what I read on the internet and because I have always been a bit of a hypochondriac.”
His GP referred him to the ear, nose and throat clinic in Edinburgh and he found himself in a room with a consultant, medical students and an exploratory tube down his nose.
As he sat outside, while the consultant examined his case, the students emerged from the room and filed past him.
He said: “They didn’t look at me. It was like a jury not looking at the condemned man.
“That’s what it felt like at the time and I knew it wasn’t good.” After a biopsy, the diagnosis was delivered, with Vicki, his wife of 15 years, by his side.
David said: “We were astonished. I was terrified. I was upset, thinking about the kids and our family.”
But there was solace when the doctor told him at an early stage that his chances were good and the cancer was treatable.
His consultant told him not to retreat and not to lock out friends and family.
His employers were supportive and every two weeks, his colleagues sent him funny cards, which he found a welcome morale boost.
He said: “They cheered me up. There is a bit in the middle when the treatment is rough and I did get down, so knowing people were thinking about me was really important, really nice.
“I made up my mind I was going to approach the whole thing with the best attitude I could, rather than hiding in a dark room and throughout, I felt loved and well cared for.”
Staff at the Edinburgh Cancer Centre at the Western General Hospital explained what he could expect during the treatment.
David knew it would be gruelling but knowledge became an important tool in tackling what lay ahead.
He said: “I knew what was coming, there were no horrible surprises. I was
Reporter reveals how he reacted to his shock diagnosis and why he was relieved to be recovering at home as his colleagues took on the Beast from the East
I was terrified. I was upset thinking of our children and family DAVID COWAN ON BEING GIVEN HIS DIAGNOSIS
prepared. I also saw people at the cancer centre, including children, who were in a far worse state than I was, so I tried to be as upbeat as I could.”
A six-week course of radiotherapy began in February this year and the side-effects grew increasingly punishing. His throat was painful and inflamed which made it hard to swallow, and a feeding tube was fitted to his stomach. The treatment left him temporarily with no sense of taste and the sickness was exhausting. There was an emotional toll and towards the end of the course, he felt he had hit a low. But he said: “I always knew that the treatment was far better than the alternative, which was that I could die. I also kept thinking, ‘This will get better, it won’t last forever. It was only a few weeks’.”
What got him through was the kindness and dedication of NHS staff.
He said: “They talk about fighting cancer. I never felt that. I felt the NHS were fighting for me and I was just the body it was happening to.
“I do genuinely feel very lucky and grateful for all the treatment I got from the NHS, which was brilliant.
“I probably cried about twice and what got me was how kind the staff were. Little things, like a radiographer who took 10 minutes to talk just about my kids, made such a difference.”
His treatment ended on the day the winter storm the Beast from the East hit and he watched his colleagues on TV, chittering in blizzards.
He laughed as he recalled: “I was
watching them all working really hard and was glad it wasn’t me. I was happier lying watching it, doped up on morphine.”
David was given the all-clear earlier this month and is now on a phased return to work and will soon be back as a regular on our screens.
It will take him time to get fully back on his feet but he walks every day with his devoted dog, Gracie, and his posts of their adventures have become a hit on Twitter.
The cancer has left him with a lasting appreciation of his life and he urged anyone who is worried about symptoms, such as lumps, to go and get checked.
He said: “It does change your perspective. I’m not going to go running marathons or climbing mountains but it has made me grateful for what I have.
“I’m glad I went to have the lump checked and that the NHS were there to save my life. I feel incredibly lucky. ”