'Cancer? Me? But I'm only 28'

The doctor said: "They found a tumour in your kidney." This was astonishing news and I was utterly unprepared for it. I am 28, of a generation now facing up to the fragility of their parents but whose own serious health concerns amount to discussions about Bikram yoga, Botox and wheat-free detox. I was now discovering how misguided this is.

In January I had keyhole surgery to remove my right kidney. A year earlier I'd gone to see my GP with a tummy bug. She pointed out that the righthand side of my abdomen was swollen - I had assumed I was naturally a slightly odd shape - and sent me for an ultrasound. The scans picked up an unexpected problem: a vastly distended, malfunctioning kidney.

The consultant at Charing Cross Hospital explained that I had a UPJ (ureteropelvic junction) obstruction, possibly caused by an aberrant blood vessel, where the ureter joins the kidney. I'd probably been born with it. Further tests revealed that the kidney had only 10 per cent function and was swollen to the size of a house brick. It would have to come out.

The operation went reasonably well. I was on a drip for three days, in hospital for five and back at work after three weeks. The experience was a lot more physically sapping than I'd anticipated but, 10 weeks on, I was beginning to feel like my normal self again.

That sunny day in April I breezed into the consultant's room expecting just to say thank you, show them how well the longest of my pinky purple scars was healing, and leave.

"Actually," said the doctor slowly, "there is something else I want to talk to you about." There was a long moment. Half of my brain started chanting: "Cancer, cancer, cancer."

She said: "They found a tumour in your kidney." I couldn't believe it. What was she talking about? I had no idea that when an organ is removed it is sent to a lab for analysis.

I looked at her blankly. I tried to ask whether the tumour was benign or malignant but couldn't remember the words. She had to help me with them.

She said: "Yes, it was a shock for us as well. But the tumour is very small, only 1mm. It's so small that it's impossible to tell whether it is benign or malignant. Look." She passed me the pathology report. The letters kept moving around on the page. I couldn't understand them.

"So," I said, "are the chances 50-50 that it's benign?" "Well, no. It's probably malignant." I didn't want to leave the room feeling unsure, so I got the word out and put it on the table.

"Is this cancer?" "Yes," she said. Then I started asking her all the questions again, right from the beginning, because I couldn't quite believe what I'd just heard.

I found out a few more things. This was a primary cancer. It was very important not to smoke. Kidney cancers grow very slowly and this, if malignant, would not grow big enough to have symptoms of its own for another 10 to 15 years. There was a chance that this cancer might be genetic but no one knew. I would have my remaining kidney scanned at regular intervals to check for tumours for the rest of my life. Oh, and the polyp in my gall bladder - another "incidental" finding of the ultrasound scans - needed another look, just in case. I would be referred to another specialist.

I walked out of the hospital in a daze. Logically, I told myself, I shouldn't be too worried. The tumour was small. It had already been taken out. Really, it was nothing more than a lucky escape and a nasty shock. Still, the shock of it blasted away all other emotions.

I told my boyfriend over a croque monsieur at lunchtime. He was anxious-but brilliant, saying all the right things. That night I went out with three girlfriends, as already planned, and ordered champagne over and over again.

For a week I worried myself sick and my friends told me I looked grey. I learned all I could about kidney cancer from various charity websites and discovered that, not being fat, male, over-40 or a smoker (40 per cent of kidney cancers are caused by smoking), I was far from being a typical candidate.

Did this mean I was more likely to have a genetic predisposition to it? I hoped not; that would bode ill for the other kidney. Then two good things happened. First, I had a brisk email from my consultant that addressed and dismissed my fears - "This is an unusual and I think not very serious problem." And I spoke to the doctor father of a friend who assured me that the polyp in my gall bladder was unlikely to be connected to the tumour in my kidney. "In my entire career I have never encountered a secondary cancer in the gall bladder," he said.

I felt like a fraud. What was I whining about? And I began to realise that this episode had, hopefully, been nothing more than a sharp reality check.

Life is very different now. Not materially - I am still doing the same job in journalism, and I spend my time in much the same way as I used to - but my attitude and perspectives have changed. Put simply, some things matter and some things don't and I now find it much easier simply to shrug off problems I don't need to care about. Similarly, I'm more focused on the things - and people - that are important to me. All this means that I'm also calmer, more relaxed, and I no longer take anything for granted.