Stan Walker has confirmed he has battled cancer and deadly surgery complications in the past year.
- 'She blames herself': Stan Walker doco trailer reveals mum's emotional toll
- Stan Walker reveals how 'life-threatening' health scare has changed him
- Stan Walker to share life-changing journey in Three documentary
The 27-year-old singer, speaking ahead of the premire of a documentary on his brush with death, told the Sunday Star-Times that while the cancer was the deadliest part, it was also the easiest.
His family has an aggressive CDH1 hereditary mutation, giving them an 80 percent chance of getting stomach cancer.
Stan had his stomach removed through keyhole surgery in September.
"Now my oesophagus is attached to my small intestines, which operates as a small stomach. Eventually it will stretch - within six months, I will be eating normally again, everything should be functioning.
"I don't have the acids a normal stomach has, so it just lets the food out straight away. But I can feel it. If I've eaten too much, too quickly, it's sore. I can feel it go down, and have to wait for it to get out. My appetite is the same as it was before - I'm hungry all the time - but I can't eat the way I used to. Now, I do crave healthy food. The thought of takeaways makes me sick.
"They found 13 spots of cancer in my stomach. If I hadn't got it out, well, our cancer spreads so quick, that right now I'd either be dead or on my way out. Long-term, I have to have injections of vitamin B12 every three months - I'll die without it, because that's how our bodies make blood. But I am cancer free, I'm just like everybody else."
Sadly, the process wasn't over as soon as the surgery finished.
"I had a collapsed lung, then, when I went in for a routine stretch [of the connection between the small intestine and oesophagus] I coughed, woke up and there was a leak, which meant if I ate or drank anything, I could have died.
"They put me on a PICC line - an IV all the way through, straight to my heart. It was meant to be for a couple of days, but I was on that machine for two weeks."
After numerous follow-up surgeries, Stan is sharing his experience in a self-titled documentary.
Stan will air on Three at 8:40pm on Sunday night.
Newshub.
