First Dates star Merlin Griffiths reveals he’s had his stoma removed

First Dates star Merlin Griffiths has given fans an update on his health amid his bowel cancer battle.

The barman and TV personality, 47, revealed on Twitter on Monday that he has had his stoma removed after nine months during a five-night stay in hospital.

Merlin was first diagnosed with the disease in September last year and has previously undergone radiotherapy treatment on his road to recovery.

Sharing a snap in his hospital gown after the operation he wrote in an update: ‘Gosh, it’s very odd knowing all my insides are actually inside me again after 9 months of a #stoma.

‘Next step, farting. Then food. #NHS #Cancer #Surgery.’

In a further tweet he said: ‘My plumbing works then. Cor blimey. This will take some training and getting used to. Thank goodness for Kegels! Essential!!

‘Pull up nappy deployed for safety. Need a biscuit. #Stoma #Reversal #Cancer.’

A stoma is an opening which is made on the abdomen with surgery, to divert waste out of the body and into a colostomy bag.

Merlin received his bleak diagnosis from doctors at Northampton General Hospital, saying at the time that he was trying to keep a ‘positive outlook’.

Speaking to the Sunday Mirror last year, Merlin said: ‘I’m keeping that positive outlook, but I’ve a morbid sense of humour. I tell people, ‘I have colorectal cancer… it’s a real pain in the ar*e!’

Merlin has a seven-year-old daughter called Alix with his partner Lucille, 40, who he has been with for more than a decade and was by his side as he faced a year of life-saving treatment.

When the barman told his young daughter of the troubling diagnosis he reassured her of the powers of modern medicine and gushed about the public healthcare system.

At the time, he said: ‘I have so much faith in medicine and the NHS in this country, which is just so incredible.’

Keeping his emotions behind closed doors, Merlin admitted: ‘I’ve shed a tear in private. But you can choose ‘to do’ or ‘not to do’. I chose to lead my life as normal, to stick to the facts about it, and to keep putting one step in front of the other.’

The TV personality, who became a household name alongside Fred Sirieix in the First Dates restaurant, started to feel pain in June but thought it was caused by an old stomach injury from a car accident in his 20s.

Merlin was diagnosed with bowel cancer last year and said his tumour looked like an alien and felt like a walnut stuck inside of him.

Doctors discovered the tumour when they gave the barman an emergency sigmoidoscopy to probe his lower intestine after the star spent three months telling people he felt something wrong in his body.

Merlin admitted he was terrified by the ordeal but immediately focused on his chances of survival following his diagnosis.

The star revealed that his tumour wanted to move into the tissue surrounding it but wasn’t ‘lymph’ – meaning the cancer thankfully hadn’t spread.

Merlin told his co-workers in the First Dates restaurant, including maitre d’hotel Fred and waiters Grant Urquhart and CiCi Coleman, about his diagnosis just a week after he told his family.

The barman admitted his peers were shocked and couldn’t help but question why bad things happen to good people.