![]() A year (and no cancer) later, I had chest pains. I convinced myself the discomfort was testicular cancer. Still others have lingered for months or even years, dragging at daily life, relationships, career prospects. Others have been, or felt, dramatic: the shock of a sudden lump, rash or pain must be taken to a GP, then to specialists, only to be quickly dismissed, or dissolved in the weeks-long agony of appointments and results. Fretful interludes have remained secret, never spoken about to parents, friends or professionals. ![]() Most of my life, from early adolescence onwards, has been punctuated by these episodes, more or less alarming, depending on my symptoms and the disease I have decided is expressed there. I will have to repeat some exams, but my affliction will have vanished by midsummer, walked off one hot day in St Stephen’s Green. I start hobbling, and hunch over on the bus on my way to university. In the days that follow – though I only half believe it’s happening – stiffness spreads to my wrist and elbow, to the other arm, to my hips and knees. Instead, I’m letting a morning’s MTV binge slide into the afternoon and paying keen attention to the fingers of my right hand, which have begun to ache. It’s June 1989, I recently turned 20, and I am supposed to be studying for first-year exams in English, at University College Dublin. ![]() “T his minute I was well, and am ill, this minute.” The pain arrives slowly, like a Polaroid sharpening into view, but the fear comes suddenly: a channel switched, a cloud sped across the sun.
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