Kym Marsh 'Corrie Star' Reveals Dad Is Struggling For Life After Devastating Cancer Diagnosis During Lockdown
Kym Marsh’s dad Dave has got incurable prostate cancer after delaying a check-up due to the pandemic.
Covid lockdowns have led to 50,000 fewer hospital referrals for cure on the life-threatening condition.
Kym, who hosts BBC1 daytime hit Morning Live, told how her dad delayed getting checked, and has now been diagnosed with aggressive and advanced prostate cancer.
She said: “Speed is essential — it can make all the difference. Prostate cancer is treatable, when it’s caught early.”
After months of putting off a check-up, fearing he was adding to the burden of an over-stretched NHS, 76-year-old Dave has been told his situation is incurable, inflicting pain among his family.
Kym explained: “It has been a very challenging time, I can’t deny that, but we have always been very close as a family and so we have been capable to discuss collectively and plan for the future which is important.
“But the fact is that in Dad’s case it has now spread to his pelvis, spine, ribs and left leg, which is of course terrible news.
“At this stage medical doctors are talking about it being incurable, however it is treatable and the hope is that they may be capable to prolong his life — but by how much, no one actually knows, and he is in discomfort.
“I think in his thought he has a target. He hasn’t truly shared precisely what that is but he has carried out a lot of research himself — even though I advised him not to — and he knows the statistics in terms of how long he would possibly be capable to fight this.”
Despite the heartbreaking news, father and daughter are desperate to flip their trauma into something positive.
They are urging other men who may be tempted to delay check-ups, possibly nervous of contracting Covid at a clinic, to bite the bullet and seek specialist advice.
Today, Morning Live will broadcast a movie with Kym and her dad speaking about his circumstance in a bid to inspire checks.
She added: “Obviously there’s no way of knowing for certain, and with cancer everything varies from one patient to the subsequent and can be pretty unpredictable, but there are some facts which we do know