“I’m a good example that you can be diagnosed with lung cancer even if you’ve never had a cigarette, or have rarely been in the company of people who are smoking.” 

John McMahon, 66, was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2018 after a tumour was discovered when he was receiving treatment for a blood clot. The blood clot developed when John, from Co. Clare, was flying from Australia to Ireland. He was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism and deep vein thrombosis (DVT), and tests showed he also had a tumour on one of his lungs. 

“My leg swelled up on the flight, so I went to the doctor when I got to Ireland,” says John. “They did a couple of tests. They found that I had a pulmonary embolism, and a tissue-based tumour on my lung showed up. I had stage four metastatic lung cancer.”

When John received his diagnosis of stage four, non-small cell lung cancer, he says doctors didn’t describe his illness as being cancer – but he understood what they meant. 

“The first time I heard the word ‘cancer’ was when I got a discharge letter from the hospital, and they gave me a leaflet from the Daffodil Centre in UHL with it. They’d just been describing it as a mass and a tumour, but I knew what they meant.” 

John says he visited the Irish Cancer Society Daffodil Centre in UHL several times and praised their “fabulous services”, and says he had a session with one of the cancer nurses in the centre and regularly popped in for tea during his treatment. 

While smoking causes about seven in every ten lung cancers, it is still possible to get lung cancer even if you have never smoked, as John discovered. The fact that John’s cancer spread from his lung came as a surprise to the parent-of-four, as he is a lifelong non-smoker who is rarely in the company of people who smoke. 

“I remember laughing when I was told it was in my lung, because I’m a puritanical non-smoker,” says John. “I could never work in hospitality and pubs before the smoking ban was brought in, I wouldn’t even pick up an ashtray. I somehow developed something close to a phobia of smoking, but people tend to associate smoking with lung cancer. I was fit, I was active, and I never smoked. Looking back on it, it can sneak up on you.” 

Since his diagnosis, John has undergone a year of chemotherapy, and he also underwent several rounds of radiotherapy for a tumour on his spine and a tumour on his brain. He says the radiotherapy was unsuccessful, but at present he is on a targeted medication specifically for metastatic non-small cell lung cancer, which interferes with the growth and spread of cancer cells in the body. 

“I somehow decided that I was in a big canoe hiding near a waterfall, and the drugs I’m being given are there to help me paddle,” says John. “I can hear the waterfall, and I just keep paddling, so I don’t go over the waterfall.”