A patient's story: Jim McKeever does not look like a man who has finished extensive treatment for lung cancer. A fit- looking 64-year-old, he lives with his wife Mona outside Drogheda, Co Louth.
His wiry frame has carried him through a lifetime of farming as well as sustaining a 30-a-day smoking habit for 40 years.
The first hint of a problem came in June last year when he experienced niggling pain on and off the left side of his chest. At first it was dismissed as muscular but when it recurred in July, his GP sent him for a chest X-ray. "This showed I had a collapsed lobe of my left lung," he says.
After two weeks' investigations in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, he was transferred to St James's Hospital, where Mr Vincent Young, a thoracic surgeon, removed a tumour from the upper part of his lung. The operation went well and after a period of recuperation he saw Dr Ken O'Byrne, one of the medical oncologists at St James's. He started Jim on a course of chemotherapy which was finally completed this month.
"My pain went after the surgery and I got some nausea and tiredness from the chemo," Jim says. However, the main symptom Mona noticed was irritability. Jim nods in agreement. "I got contrary for a while," he adds.
Both Jim and his wife feel positive about the future, but are glad the surgery and chemotherapy are over. Mona and their five children experienced deep shock after hearing the diagnosis but Jim says his attitude to adversity has always been "to get on with it".
Neighbours didn't call around for a while after Jim became ill. "People don't want to talk about cancer," Mona says. She advises friends and neighbours not to shy away from someone they have just heard has cancer. "It's easier when people come to talk."
Jim's advice to someone facing a cancer diagnosis? "Think positive and talk about it."