Former Bolton News reporter Neal Keeling was recently diagnosed with cancer. Now the chief reporter on the Manchester Evening News, he bravely reveals the moment the news he dreaded became reality - and what has helped give him the faith to fight on.

It was the moment the spirit of toughness I had engineered buckled. A doctor was giving me more bad news. Three weeks earlier my left kidney, encased by a tumour had been removed.

The operation carried out at Manchester Royal Infirmary had gone well. The tumour had invaded a renal vein, but I was in expert hands and that was cleared too.

But now a punch I suspected was coming and could not avoid was landed. It was like being hit by Sugar Ray Leonard in his prime.

The tumour, was, on a scale of one to four, a four — the most aggressive you can get.

The irony was not lost on me. I have survived at the Manchester Evening News for 25 years on 90 per cent relentless aggression and 10 per cent talent when it comes to story hunting.

Spots of cancer are believed to be on my lungs and I will need further treatment at The Christie in Manchester. The rocky road I thought I was clearing has taken a new turn.

My wife, Felicity, drove us back from the MRI to Whitefield in virtual silence — punctuated only by me snarling at a jerk in a Mercedes devoid of

target="_blank">motoring manners.

On our driveway she cried and threw her arms around me — cue cup of tea.

In the doctor’s room we had looked at each other in disbelief. Three months ago I had been with my son, Patrick, aged 24, watching Manchester City blow it against FC Porto.

What a birthday present ticket that proved to be — Joe Hart almost getting us through with a last-second header.

That was March 15. Three days later, I began to feel very tired but continued to work for a fortnight, shrugging it off as maybe a virus.

But by the first week of April, I was off work in the grip of chronic fatigue, night sweats and an alarming loss of appetite and weight.

Lymphoma was suspected and I was referred by my GP to a haematologist at North Manchester General. He gave me a grilling I would have been proud of dishing out myself — question after question.

Unconvinced I belonged in his field of medicine he ordered a CT scan for me. That revealed the truth — a tumour 7cm by 6cm around my kidney. Two weeks later it had been taken out.

The experience awakened a long dormant part of me.

During 30 years as a journalist in Bury, Bolton, Salford and Manchester I have turned from a green, naive, dizzy young buck into at times a cynical, mistrusting, battle-scarred brute.

Dealing with the worst of human behaviour on a daily basis while covering crime leaves a mark.

When a positive story crossed my desk it was like the warmth of the summer sun piercing my armour.

Like the Manchester cop who gave his crucifix to a 76-year-old stabbing victim as she lay bewildered, hurt, and terrified.

Now the vicious tumour has triggered in me an almost evangelical new faith in the human race.

The love of my wife and children is a rock. The Maine Road-raised humour of my son a daily boost. ‘See ya still milking it dad. When you going back to work?’ Mates I have known since my school days in the Black Country drove North to visit me. Prayers were said for me at the Methodist church “back home” where, as a lad, I fidgeted through sermons, chased girls and stuck bubblegum under the pew. Still, the elders of Walsall Central Hall Mission saw fit to pitch for me.

Thanks to a good man from Bolton, an imam is praying for me in a mosque.

My fragmented extended family suddenly came together. Cards arrived from aunts, uncles and cousins — and I had a heartbreaking note from my “little sister” in New Zealand.

And then there is the family that possesses my soul — the Manchester Evening News. Support flowed from the fearless, talented “kids” of the newsroom, willing me to pull through. Their backing turned the new Bruce Springsteen song, We Take Care of Our Own, into an anthem of hope for me.

But there was another source of my “conversion”.

I watched her as I lay in the post-operation recovery ward. She seemed hard, not giving me a glance while a colleague told her about me as she started her shift.

Every 30 minutes of the night that followed she was at my side, checking my heart rate, blood pressure, drip and oxygen.

At about 3am she leaned over my bed and said: “You all right chicken?” I knew there was a woman behind the essential professional mask of a meticulous, focused nurse.

I had been in the same position for many hours after my operation. I had to be moved to prevent bed sores.

She warned me it would hurt. My chest was already taut with a wound bearing 42 metal staples.

As she and a colleague gently rolled me from one side to another I yelped like a sat-on pup. “Sorry for being such a wimp,” I said. “You’re not a wimp. You have had major surgery,” was her instant reply.

Then she showed a side of her job which though instinctive was no less astounding.

She took my hand and held it for a minute until the fear, pain and colossal emotions coursing through my body subsided.

Moved from recovery to ward nine, berth 13, I remained in awe of the staff.

Although clearly stretched at times, they oozed humanity and tough love.

It went hand in hand when dealing with the essential tasks of putting me into a chair, walking me to the bathroom, helping me wash, and encouraging me eventually to walk unaided.

I spent the Jubilee weekend constipated — the usual “bonus” when pain-killing drugs have worked their magic.

The “wilderness days” of failure in the bathroom were to last more than a week.

At one point, skewered to a ward toilet seat and wearing a fetching open-ended smock, I shouted at the wall “I’m Neal Keeling and I’m not having this”. But the God of Bran Flakes was not listening.

Maggie, a nurse with a knowing eye told me “I’m the queen of the enema”, and soon I was on my way to a better place.

I have written many stories about people whose lives have been touched by cancer. I spent a day covering the Race for Life in Heaton Park.

I did so without really having a clue about what they had endured.

A few days after my operation, my surgeon, Neeraj Sharma, appeared at my bedside. I whinged about not being able to go to the toilet. He smiled and said: “It pleases me that all you are concerned about is your bowels when so much could have gone wrong with your operation.

“What puzzles me is why some people don’t use something like this as a wake-up call to do something with their lives.”

He exuded confidence without arrogance, and when he reassured me I wanted to believe so badly that there was a life out there still waiting to be lived . . . by me.

As well as my son I have two daughters, Grace, aged 22, and Anna, aged seven. All three are blessed with their mother’s good looks, which should make no difference but actually amplifies the turmoil inside me when I look at them.

But it also fuels a determination to keep going and put my faith in the wonderful National Health Service which is giving me a chance to survive.