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When she was 17, Caroline Crampton was diagnosed with blood cancer.

She went through the treatment. It receded, then returned, and then receded for good.

She was declared cured at 22. No more annual checkups or scans or medications. They said she was cancer-free, but she was not free. The experience left her with an enduring fear that something

was still or always wrong with her. She looked for signs and developed rituals like this one.

She performed at work.

Who hasn't had a job that they find overwhelming or boring or difficult and snuck off to the

bathroom every so often when they don't actually need to go just in order to get a few minutes

piece or a break? And that for me, every so often when they don't actually need to go, just in order to get a few minutes' peace

or a break. And that for me transformed into this anxiety ritual. Every few days at the worst

times, every day, I would at some point think I could feel something in my neck where I'd had

a cancerous humour before. It would

itch with this powerful urge to check it and I would need to go off and check it before I could

think about anything else. The rhythms of this ritual are deeply ingrained. Lean forward closer to

the mirror, bracing hips against the sink.

Old bruises accepting the hard angles. One hand to pull my shirt away from my left collarbone,

the other to poke and prod the shadow I saw there. Was that to be the same bathroom, same mirror.

And I had to poke it and poke it

until I was satisfied that this time I was going to be okay.

My gaze drops to the two square inches of skin on my neck

to the left of my Adam's apple.

...