BBC presenter George Alagiah has admitted that reading the news while he has cancer leaves him “absolutely knackered physically”.
The BBC News at Six broadcaster, 66, was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2014 and has a tumour by his spine.
But despite being in agony, George says his job still gives him a boost.
The newsreader, who returned to screens in April after a six-month break, said: “I’ve spent a lot of the last 18 months in extreme pain.
“There have been times when even lying down makes it worse.
“By the time I walk out of that newsroom at seven o’clock in the evening, having been there since the morning, I am absolutely knackered physically – but mentally I am rejuvenated.”
The former foreign correspondent added that it was a “tremendous fillip” to be surrounded at work by people who treated him “as they always did”.
After his initial stage four diagnosis he had 17 rounds of chemotherapy but the cancer came back in 2017.
Sri Lanka-born George, whose BBC team won a Bafta in 2000 for its Kosovo coverage, spoke movingly about his fear of leaving behind his wife, Frances Robathan.
He told the Sunday Telegraph: “One of the things I want to do is hold hands with my wife until the end, and am I going to be able to do that?
“It haunts me.”
