Emmerdale has aired a special episode focused on Cain Dingle as he receives a life-changing diagnosis, with one person helping him through this new challenge —

and it isn’t his wife Moira. Cain has been waiting on some test results after the doctors found a mass in his prostatic gland following the events of the Corriedale crossover.

In tonight’s episode, Cain put up a confident front with Moira, who’s currently in prison after being framed for the murders of Celia Daniels and Anya Berisha.

Knowing that Cain awaited his results, she called him from jail, trying to show her husband her support from afar.

“It’ll probably turn out to be nothing,” Cain said, but his internal monologue told a different story.

“But you know what’s coming,” he told himself. “Why else would the doctor be wanting to see you?”

At the hospital, a restless Cain couldn’t sit still, as a man struck up a conversation with him. “Results day, am I right?” he told Cain. “I remember it well. Not easy, is it?”

He revealed he had prostate cancer that had spread and that he wished he’d get checked sooner, but he was “too embarrassed, too scared to speak up”.

The chat flared up Cain’s anxiety as the doctor called him in. Making up an excuse for Moira’s absence, Cain asked the doctor to “tell it like it is”.

The results of the biopsy confirmed Cain had an aggressive prostate cancer that hadn’t spread yet, but might if left untreated. The doctor recommended a radical prostatectomy (a surgery to remove the prostatic gland). Side effects could include incontinence and erectile dysfunction, as well as the inability to produce semen, which would rule out having more children.

An overwhelmed Cain zoned out, thinking: “What? This is insane.”

The doctor suggested they could go through the treatment plan another day, but reassured him that surgery would be sufficient for the time being. In the future, he may need radiotherapy, she said, at which point Cain stopped her, remembering his granddaughter Sarah’s ordeal with cancer.

“How is she now?” the doctor asked, with Cain replying: “She’s one of the strongest people I know.”

Pretending he had to go back to work, Cain left the doctor’s office, lost in his negative thoughts.

“What the hell do I do now?” he asked himself.

Kicking himself for not getting a PSA test sooner, Cain spiralled and refused a call from Moira.

He snapped at Ross Barton as well as Kammy and Sarah at the garage, unable to share his diagnosis.

Later in the Woolpack toilets, Liam Cavanagh checked in with Cain about his results, but he shut him down. As Cain headed to visit his father’s grave, Sarah followed him.

“What is wrong with you? Grumpy?” she asked, with Cain resolving to tell her.

“I’m not well,” he began, relaying the scan and the test results.

“You don’t have to go through this on your own,” a teary-eyed Sarah promised. “We’re in this together from now on,” she said.

“I’ve got cancer,” Cain finally revealed. “Were you scared? Cause I know I am.” The pair hugged as Cain sighed loudly.

Emmerdale has been working with Prostate Cancer UK on Cain’s storyline, with actor Jeff Hordley recently revealing the long-term impact of his character’s diagnosis.