Dancing With The Stars’ judge, Len Goodman was diagnosed with cancer in March and didn’t tell anyone.  Three weeks ago he had surgery to  remove a cancerous tumour in his prostate gland by one of Britain’s leading urologists, Peter Thompson at Bupa hospital in Blackheath, South-East London.  And Len tells the Dailymail:

‘I’ve had the surgery now. Everything’s gorgeously good. I’ll be back in September for sure”

He is referring to being back on the british version of DWTS ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ (and I imagine this means he will be on DWTS as well).

He discovered he had cancer in March, but being the consummate professional he chose to continue with the show (DWTS) and opt for surgery afterwards:

‘I could have said “sorry” and not done the show, but the doctors felt I wasn’t riddled with it and it wasn’t so far advanced that it was a life-or-death scenario,’ It takes a few weeks to get everything set up for the operation anyway, so I went ahead and did the show. I had the surgery done as soon as I got back from America.’

He kept the news very quiet:

“No one at the BBC knows,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want to tell everyone – it’s not necessary to blabber it out to everyone.

‘People generally think “bloody hell”. With all the hoo-ha about Strictly coming up, I thought, “Just my luck, they won’t want that old f**t on it, the cancer-riddled, bed-ridden old so-and–so.” But they haven’t said that because I haven’t told them. I’ve only told half a dozen people.’

He’s remaining optimistic:

I feel good,’ he said. ‘I was obviously worried at the start. We all worry if we get something like this. You do feel a bit vulnerable, but as long as you come out the other side all right, why worry?’

He talks of the hospital visit:

‘I was confined to the hospital for four days, and then it’s been a couple of weeks of convalescing and recuperating,’  ‘The trouble with doctors is they won’t tell you definitely what you should do.  They leave it to you. So yours is an uneducated guess. They said I could have radiation, but I thought the best thing was to have it removed.

‘It was left to me and I felt that was the best route, but whether it is or not I don’t know. You’re a bit sore for a while and you can’t play golf, which is the biggest blow at the moment. But I will be able to in a month’s time or so – I can’t wait.’

Len is speaking up and advising men to take care of themselves:

‘Men,  probably more than women, tend to ignore their health.  ‘As long as you get checked up every year, then medicine is such now that if you do get something, then hopefully they can catch it early and you have a good chance. ‘I think that’s the most important thing – men of a certain age should have their check-up every year.

We wish Len a speedy recovery and good health.

Photo:  WENN.com