***In which our hero doesn’t, and then maybe does, and then definitely does have cancer. Just so we’re clear.***

“John, I think you’ve got blood cancer.”

“Fuck off.”

“I just really think you should go to the GP. There’s that rash on your leg, and you keep having nosebleeds, and you’re always tired and-”

“Fuck off. You’re a hypochondriac. What’s worse, you’re being a hypochondriac at me. This is basically Munchausen’s Syndrome by proxy. Fuck off.”

“But-”

“Fuck off.”

The awkward thing about spending two months telling your girlfriend that she’s an idiot for Google-diagnosing you with leukaemia, of course, is when she turns out to be very nearly correct. Ought I to regret, to recant the conversation above and the dozens like it, or is it just inevitable that one nervy partner in a million will accurately call a cancer diagnosis eight weeks before a doctor appears on the…