Paddy's health shock 'I NEVER EXPECTED THIS'

The TV host went in for a routine check, but got life-changing news

- Rebekah Hebenton

When Paddy Gower agreed to have a colonoscopy on television to raise awareness about bowel cancer, it felt like just another day at work.

But just minutes into the procedure, the doctor paused, then delivered the news that would change everything - he had found a growth. Paddy was stunned.

"I had not mentally prepared for that," the Paddy Gower Has Issues host admits. "But if you think about it, there was a likelihood that they might find something. I'm 48 years old. Just because I was doing it for a TV show didn't make what's happening inside my body any different."

During the 30-minute procedure, Professor Frank Frizelle - one of New Zealand's leading colorectal surgeons - discovered a second small polyp and Paddy's thoughts immediately spiralled to the worst-case scenario.

After losing his beloved mum Joan to lung cancer 18 years ago, Paddy worried he was about to face the same fate.

"My mind turned to how Mum had died and there's cancer in my family," he shares. "My deepest personal fear is dying of the disease after watching it happen to my mother."

Once out of recovery, Frank explained that one of the polyps was precancerous and would have developed into cancer within the next decade.