Rhod Gilbert has opened up on the “terrible” symptoms of cancer, amid his latest news following the diagnosis.
The update comes ahead of his new show, Rhod Gilbert: A Pain in the Neck, which airs tonight (Monday, October 30) on Channel 4.
Rhod Gilbert latest cancer update
In a new interview with the Radio Times, comedian Rhod spoke of some of the good news he’s received since his cancer diagnosis.
“I was back on the road earlier this year. I got a call to say my latest scan had shown the cancer was in the areas they knew about, but it wasn’t in my lungs or my brain. I told my consultant, ‘This is the best day of my life.’ If you’d told me that three months earlier…Well, everything becomes relative,” he said.
More good news has followed recently for the Welsh comedian. He received his first clear scan. “The best thing was that the tumour had gone, and it was once again an ordinary blood vessel,” he said.
Speaking about life now, he said: “I wish I could say I’ve given up drinking. I go to the gym a bit more, but I’ve broadly returned to the lifestyle I had before, and I’m thrilled about it. I’ve had a big party here this weekend, and I want that to be a message of hope. I never thought I’d be sitting around a campfire, drinking and dancing with my friends, and here we are.”
Rhod Gilbert opens up on cancer diagnosis
Back in February, Rhod spoke about his cancer diagnosis. He opened up during the National Comedy Awards, which was in aid of Stand Up 2 Cancer. He spoke about how it all started.
In the pre-recorded segment, DIY SOS host Rhod said: “I couldn’t speak or breathe and I was postponing and cancelling tour shows, I had terrible spasms in my face and a lot of tightness in my muscles.
“Couldn’t get to the bottom of it, turns out after a biopsy of this lump in my neck that I have something called head and neck cancer, cancer of the head, sounded pretty serious.”
He joked that the stage four diagnosis ‘[blank]ed him off’. Rhod said he thought he had “life-long immunity” after being a patron for a cancer charity.
The 54-year-old said: “I’ve led five fundraising treks all over the world, I do stand-up comedy nights to raise money, I hosted quizzes… it’s been a big part of my life for the last 10 years, so imagine my surprise when I was diagnosed with cancer. Which [bleeped]ed me off no end, because I thought I’d have life-long immunity! Apparently not.
“Apparently you’re just as likely to get cancer even if you spend your time fundraising for a cancer hospital. Anyway, I did get it, and it turns out it can come for anybody.”
Rhod’s fundraising
He also said that he spotted the lump on his neck when he was in Cuba doing fundraising work for the Velindre Cancer Centre charity.
Rhod added: “The other irony is that I was in Cuba on a trek, fundraising for this cancer centre when the first [blank] lump popped up in my neck. I literally left as a patron and came back as a patient.”
But after surgery, daily radiotherapy and chemotherapy, he said he was beginning to recover.
“I’m feeling optimistic and weirdly I’m feeling really happy and really positive,” he said at the time.
Read more: DIY SOS host Rhod Gilbert to ‘disappear for a while’ as he has cancer treatment
Rhod Gilbert: A Pain in the Neck airs tonight (Monday, October 30) at 9pm on Channel 4.
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