Living It Up in Paris

Despite Cancer… I choose to view my cancer diagnosis with a small c.

—by Maria D’Arcy, published in the Irish independant, September 24th 2025

Halloween was beckoning in all its magnificent hues of orange when suddenly black hail blasted me. Intuition had been nagging but I preferred, aged 49, to regard my distressingly long periods as pre-menopause.

Selected Internet articles seconded this vantage point until I went through a week of public alarm in French cafés, on the métro and at school, avalanches of blood dripping onto the floor, trailing me down corridors, splashing onto walls and saturating my underwear. I had no choice but to go to the emergency ward in Bichat hospital, Paris. My body was having a fit of haemorrhaging, cervical cancer soon exposed.

I didn’t want to stay in. My agenda was full, my life spicy. Freshly in love was I and my chéri-amour and I were preparing our zany costumes for a weird and loony party in our friend’s house in Maisons-Alfort on the edge of Paris, a detached house where you could do “The Monster Mash” at 100 decibels.

“Will I have to stay overnight… two nights, how many?” I asked the gynaecologist, in dread of missing the fancy-dressed autumn peak. “Your life is about to change. It’s not a question of nights but months or years, depending on whether you respond well to the protocol.”

By “protocol” he meant laser, biopsy, surgery on the lymph nodes, intravenous medicine and pumped nutrition for starters, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, curietherapy and a hysterectomy as the main course and immunotherapy at Institute Marie Curie for afters.

A patient has to become very patient, I soon learned as I waited for ambulance drivers, medical machines and test analysis.

However, I had allies to help me over the hurdles, including the comforting voice recording of Louise Hays guiding me to forgive others, to wish well to the one(s) who had grieved me most thus purging myself from ingrained resentment and granting me lightness.

Crowned with that, the luminous words of Deepak Chopra were there to postulate Quantum Healing, stimulating power of the mind, active visualisation combined with a sense of purpose.

Purpose was crystal clear, too much to do before surrendering to death. There was my philosophical novel to finish, as it happens, on the end, Heaven in all its glory, my legacy to the world, a testimony that I had passed through the valley of life and left a mark.

There was a future funeral to pay. I couldn’t dump such a burden on my financially-challenged family. But the burning flame was to bask in extra time with my lover who remained constant, even lying by my side on the crisp-clean hospital beds.

Moreover, music, dance, cosmetics and wigs were there to boost me. I chose not to speak about my hospital ordeals to my Paris entourage at Irish Cultural Centre gatherings, in the language schools where I worked part-time or at exuberant arty events in Montmartre.

Whenever someone commented they hadn’t seen me for a while I turned the tide and said ‘Yes, where have you been?’ and they would speak about their ambles.

If anyone commented on my weight loss I treated is as a compliment, “Do you really think so? Thank you very much, you are too kind.” When you don’t focus on illness it passes unnoticed by others and it fades from the forefront.

Ten glorious years have passed. My hair has grown back as silky as a child’s. I have seized every opportunity to perform, to dance, to doll up and entertain others as well as myself. Instead of wallowing in increasingly shocking News on TV, I immerse myself in feel-good movies.

Eternal allegiance goes to Bridget Jones, Sex in the City and Mamma Mia.

Residual worries were uploaded in paying upfront for my ashes to go back to Donegal. NB, I choose to view cancer with a small ‘c’ (as I stride onwards).

This week the research unit of Institute Curie announced all experiments on me were complete, my immune system was functioning on its own, no more Pembrolizumab + Vibostolimab required. Immunotherapy has proven to be successful on cervical cancer so “Adieu.”

It was the long-term sympathetic pharmacist in the chemist shop opposite my quaint Parisian home who prompted me to write this article about joy and resilience to perhaps lessen the gloom of others (who are) faced with a similar diagnosis. She had seen me regularly… prescriptions for side effects, (all) free courtesy of the wonderful French social security system.

My magic-realism book, “Seventh Heaven Seven Perceptions” was put on the shelves of Shakespeare and Company, the treasure trove of literature on Paris’ left bank of La Seine, facing Notre-Dame, and for several months the book took pride of place in the window display of “Sweny’s Pharmacy” another bastion of Irish literature, situated on Lincoln Place, behind the magnificent Trinity College Dublin. In both bookshop-venues I am graciously and annually invited to perform extracts from Ulysses, yet nobody guessed, for several years, the flowing hair under my floppy hat was a coquettish wig. By the way, for the romantics among you, my cavalier and I are still together.

Contact: Maria D’Arcy 75017 Paris France
Tel: +33 (0)6 83 27 23 80; e-mail:

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