Archie Macpherson: 'Passive smoking gave me cancer'
By Stuart Macdonald
PUBLISHED: 00:39 EST, 9 October 2013 | UPDATED: 04:54 EST, 9 October 2013
Broadcaster Archie Macpherson revealed yesterday that has been battling kidney cancer.
The veteran sports commentator described his shock upon learning the disease was linked to smoking - despite the fact he has never smoked a cigarette.
Mr Macpherson, 78, was given the diagnosis six months ago after abnormalities were detected in a urine sample during a routine check-up.
He underwent surgery a few weeks ago at Monklands Hospital in Airdrie, Lanarkshire, to remove a tumour, which also saw him lose one healthy kidney and part of his second kidney. He has now been given the all-clear.
Doctors said years of passive smoke during his career as a journalist almost certainly caused the cancer.
Glasgow-born Mr Macpherson said his cancer was of the 'sleekit kind', one that displayed no symptoms and never prevented him from enjoying hobbies including golf and cross-country running.
He said: 'When I was told this condition was closely linked to smoking and informed them I had never had a cigarette in my mouth in my entire life, the doctors were adamant I was almost certainly a victim of passive smoking.
'I had to add things up. As I am fond of a dram or two, I had spent many pleasant hours in howffs around the world with people around me creating the conditions of Auld Reekie at its worst.
'I could take you to a bar in Marseilles where, before the ban, I could sit happily for hours, as a non-smoker, naively savouring the almost exotic aroma of the wonderful Gauloises French cigarettes, as innocently as breathing in the fragrance of a pine forest.'
HEAVY SMOKERS TWICE AS LIKELY TO DEVELOP KIDNEY CANCERHe added: 'I also worked blissfully in editorial offices and press boxes in the past, which had the sulphuric stench of Hades about them.'
Doctors told Mr Macpherson the cancer could have been developing for up to five years and might have turned life-threatening had it not been caught by chance this year.
The broadcaster, who lives in Bothwell, Lanarkshire, with his wife Jess, paid tribute to the 'unsung heroes' in the NHS who saved his life.
He said: 'I've spent years writing about overpaid, pampered footballers. Now I have a chance to praise the real heroes of the medical profession, who have saved my life.
'When I learn that kidney cancers are occurring among people in their forties, that Scotland is the only nation in the UK where lung cancer remains the most common cancer, I shudder at the thought of how these dedicated people I encountered in the past couple of months will cope with a tsunami of ailments hitting them in future, as our society seems largely indifferent to the self-immolations of reckless lifestyles.
'Yet hopefully my narrative will encourage some to see the value of grappling with any uncertainties about their health in the knowledge that even in a harassed medical system, skills and care exist to turn an early diagnosis into an affirmation of life, not its reverse.
'Even were it to mean you have to sacrifice an organ in the process, as in my case, what you are being offered is the privilege of bartering with mortality. In such circumstances there is no such a thing as a bad deal.'