Hi Toby,
I also was a bit puzzled at first, as Chris always tends to vary what he says about the same things/events in different interviews.
As I see it now, after reading and listening to dozens of Chris's interviews, it was never a cancer, but something very close to it in symptoms and aftermath. It was peritonitis in 1994 and pancreatis in 2000.
Here are some Chris's cites on this issue from printed interviews over the years:
VOX MAGAZINE 4/1998: In fact, Rea ultimately required five major operations after being felled by peritonitis, plus various stomach-churning complications, while holidaying in France in late 1994. In hospital for months, he amassed 100 internal stitches, while his weight plummeted from 14 to nine stone. "So '94 and '95 became this hooded, dark thing," he scowls. "The physical effects of being completely opened up and thrown around down there five times cause a lot of lasting discomfort... and it's fucking horrible! Hurgh hurgh!"
THE INDEPENDENT 3/5/1997: two years ago he got peritonitis and nearly died
HET NIEUWSBLAD 2/9/1998: With The Blue Cafe you let a pretty dark period behind you. You had to deal with peritonitis (a type of cancer, if we have it right)? (Chris does not answer this quiestion)
THE MIRROR 28/12/2002 - MY ROAD FROM HELL by Rebecca Fletcher: "My liver wasn't draining to my pancreas. X-rays showed one big shadow - the doctors also thought I had blanket cancer across my stomach. I was lying there, waiting to have my pancreas, duodenum and a third of my stomach removed, and suddenly all the money in the world didn't mean a thing. I just thought, `I haven't made the music I want'. Even during recovery, spending six weeks waiting to see if it was cancer, with morphine bubbling around in pipes all over me, that was all I thought about."
HAMBURGER ABENDALL 28/9/2002: He was suffering at the time from acute pancreatitis, probably caused by a bile duct stone.
Chris also speaks much of his 2000 illness in King of the Beach promo-interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-446L4HHVIQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHDSGREXdnA
He has been being asked many times about it over the years after 2002, but he was already tired of talking about it and never told much.
There was also a rather misleading article from 2009, where they say it was pancreatic cancer back yet in 1994 which seems not to be true and they simply mixed the whole thing up: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... s-Rea.html
Hope this helps you to find a certain answer,
best wishes
Andrey