Hypocondria?

Hypocondria has always seemed to me to be one of those daft psychological "illnesses" that should disappear with a bit of rational thought. But lately I have been pondering alot on cancer. Of course my dad died of cancer back in 2006 (can it really be so long ago?) and my brother died of it way back in 1974 (June 5th to be precise). And in the past few days, Steve Jobs and Graham Dilley have both died young (in their mid 50s)

I have been slowly working through the pile of press cuttings from the past 6 months or so and I was surprised to notice that I have kept a large number of cancer-related articles. There was a series in The Times called "Living with cancer" for instance. Then, over the summer, I bought Megan O'Rourke's The Long Goodbye, an account of her mother's death from cancer.

Yet I don't go rushing off to the doctors whenever I don't feel 100%. Indeed I have only been to the doctors twice in the last 15 years. Yet there is the nagging feeling in the back of my mind that it is only a matter of time before I succumb to cancer. Today I am feeling quite tired this afternoon. It doesn't matter that I worked 15 hours on Friday, 12 on Saturday, 10 on Sunday and 12 today so far - that I am tired this afternoon is a sure sign that something must be wrong.

Very curious to experience something that I had always dismissed as nonsense.