‘Funny pains’ in my back and legs were bowel cancer, says BBC war reporter Bowen, 59
BBC war correspondent Jeremy Bowen has told how he was diagnosed with bowel cancer after going to the doctor with ‘funny pains’ in his back and legs.
The corporation’s Middle East editor, 59, had none of the usual symptoms of bowel cancer.
However, he noticed something was wrong with his back and legs in Iraq nearly a year ago, and initially put it down to old scars from surgery. But after seeking medical help last autumn, he tested positive for cancer.
Doctors carried out a colonoscopy – inserting a camera into the colon – and found a tumour, which they removed. Bowen is now having chemotherapy.
The journalist, who is a patron of the Bowel Cancer UK charity, said that the colonoscopy was ‘not nearly as bad as it sounds’ and that doctors were able to catch his cancer before it became more serious. ‘I had none of the classic bowel cancer symptoms,’ he said.
‘Nothing at all. But I thought I should get a test.’
He admitted that his diagnosis last October could have come earlier, but added: ‘Had it been later it would have been much more serious’.
At first, the veteran journalist kept the matter very private, telling only his ‘ nearest and dearest and friends’. But he decided to speak publicly about his diagnosis in order to help raise awareness of the disease.
He told BBC Breakfast: ‘I’ve been saying to all my friends “Get tested”. People I know have been queueing up at their doctor’s to get tested as a result of the diagnosis I had.
‘Things to do with your bowels and poo ... are not things people normally want to talk about. But actually it’s part of all our lives and you need to work on it.
‘If me coming on your programme means that a few extra people get tested and as a result get their cancers caught, then it’s time well spent.’
Thousands die needlessly of bowel cancer every year because they are too embarrassed to get screened. Typical symptoms include blood in the stools and bloating after eating.
It is the fourth most common cancer in Britain, with 42,000 cases a year, but the second leading cause of cancer deaths, claiming around 16,000 lives every year.
Bowen has been shot at, robbed at gunpoint and even seen a colleague killed during his long career at the BBC, which he joined in 1984.
He has reported from more than 70 countries. Often delivering reports from war zones while wearing a helmet and body armour, he has covered conflicts in the Balkans, Africa, Central America, Asia and the Middle East. Taking a break from the frontline, he also hosted BBC Breakfast on TV between 2000 and 2002.
He now lives in south London with his partner Julia Williams, a fellow journalist. They have two teenage children, Mattie and Jack.
He said that the process of being diagnosed and treated for bowel cancer was not as bad as he feared. ‘[The colonoscopy] is not nearly as bad as it sounds. They give you lots of drugs,’ he said.
‘[The chemotherapy] is not nearly as bad as I thought. It affects people differently and I think I’ve just been quite lucky to tolerate it better than I expected,’ he said.
Mr Bowen is the latest in a string of high-profile presenters who have used their own cancer diagnoses to raise awareness about the disease.
Last year, BBC host Bill Turnbull and Stephen Fry were praised for openly discussing their own experiences of prostate cancer. Their admissions sparked a surge in the number of men seeking advice from the NHS website, which NHS bosses nicknamed ‘the Turnbull-Fry effect’.
‘They give you lots of drugs’