Having been through kidney stones and another moderately distressing medical event, I feel for you on the “can’t trust my body” anymore front. I think the trust will come back; it has for me. Well, except my right knee, but that has a logical explanation, so I’m not worried about the problem spreading.

Good luck… and good biking!

My mother says the same thing – recently she had a scare with her eyes (the optician told her, um, not to alarm her, but he thought there might be a largish hole in her retina and perhaps she should get it checked out. Soon) which were one thing she wasn’t worrying about. It comes to us all.

Since my twenty-four-year-old sister was diagnosed with arthritis in her hands (my brother’s had it in his hip and knee since he was ten or so) I’ve started to worry about every little ache from typing too much… you can’t fight your genes, but on the other hand, I’m the lucky one not to have problems yet.

I’ve heard that it’s the people who are hardly ever ill who overreact to syptoms. I took part in an experiment once which got you to pay attention to certain body processes (your pulse was one) that you’d never normally pay any attention to, and it’s true: once you start concentrating on them, all sorts of normal sensations start to feel really weird.