BBC’s Jeremy Bowen gives health update 3 years on from cancer diagnosis

BBC's Middle East editor once described it as "scarier than being bombed", but having been in remission for three years post-surgery, he has a new outlook.In a new interview, the journalist opened up on his diagnosis while stating very clearly he isn't packing in his job any time soon."Anyone who wants to fill my role, I have to disappoint them and say I’m trying to keep going," he laughed."I’m only 61 and, as you get older, you tend to think that experience counts for more.

Funny that."But his new-found confidence came after he was hit with the news no-one wants to hear."It was a serious tumour,” Jeremy recalled."I had a lot of chemotherapy and I’ve been clear since my surgery."He went on to reveal he has regular check-ups every six months at the Royal Marsden Hospital.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."You’re bumbling along with your life and then suddenly a doctor’s telling you you’ve got some really serious illness," he told Radio Times.Jeremy developed "funny pains" in his legs and back while in Iraq in 2018 but had none of the typical symptoms of the disease.Usual symptoms include bloody stools and bloating after eating, according to the NHS.In October 2019, doctors found a lump during a colonoscopy.The year of receiving the life-changing health news, the journalist urged others to get tested to avoid "dying of embarrassment".He told the NHS expo conference in Manchester: "In 1995 I remember lying in the snow in Grozny in Chechnya wearing my flak jacket and helmet."The Russians were bombing the place and buildings were on fire and those planes were.