David Oakley never thought of himself as a risk-taker. As a young man, he had worked in a bank and studied statistics. He was a solid, sensible type who liked to work out the probability of things and err on the side of caution. When he and his girlfriend, Katrina, found themselves strapped for cash after they had been travelling, he considered taking part in a medical trial as a human guinea pig. But before making a decision he might regret, he looked into it with his usual vigilance. What kind of people put themselves forward for these experiments? Why did they do it? Had there been any disasters?
He discovered that many volunteers were similar to himself: young, healthy, often on their travels, and skint. They also tended to be a bit idealistic - being a human guinea pig was not only a quick way of making a couple of grand, there was every chance that it would do some good. But still he wasn't happy. So he and Katrina, both New Zealanders with British citizenship, did more research. "We went through the documentation they provided very carefully. Katrina used to do biostats, like biology, so she understands what tests have to be done before it gets to the trial stage in humans, and she was relatively OK with it. Then we found out that a lot of doctors do clinical trials themselves to sustain them while they are studying, so we decided it would be OK."
In 2004 he did a trial for an asthma drug. He had to stay in hospital for 12 days and was paid £1,600. He had to work for the money, he says. Every half hour he had to blow into machines and there were regular blood tests. A year later, he did another trial. By now he was training as a driving instructor, and again was running out of readies. He found it easy this time, and treated it as a chance to rest. He met one man who had done more than 20 trials, one every four months, and was paying off his mortgage with the money. Oakley thought that was excessive, pushing your luck.
In 2006, he and Katrina bought a house and got engaged. The driving school was successful, but the upcoming wedding and mortgage were financially draining. So he applied for another trial, this time for a drug, known simply as TGN1412, created by German company TeGenero and designed to treat leukaemia and chronic inflammatory conditions.
As with Oakley's previous two trials, this one would take place at a private wing of Northwick Park hospital and be run by a US company, Parexel. By now, Oakley, then 34, knew the form - turn up at the hospital a few weeks beforehand to do tests and be examined to make sure he was fit enough. This time, though, things were different. "We sat down and received a brief that on previous trials would have normally lasted a good half-hour to 45 minutes, but this brief lasted about 10 minutes. Before, they would sit everyone down in the lounge and read through all the information and make sure everybody understands what's happening, 'Any questions, no, we move on.'
"This time, a doctor - I assume he was a doctor, he seemed very young - sat down with us, handed out the forms, information which is about that thick [he makes a brick shape with his hands] and said, 'Have a quick flick through this. If you've got any questions, ask me.' There was no examination, no listening to the heart, listening to your breathing, you know, normal things. I was out within an hour and a half. So part of me thought that was good. Now I'm thinking, 'God, I wouldn't have minded doing the waiting.' I think they must have had a consultant in to find out how they could cut costs. A lot of those additional procedures are there for a reason and they trimmed them. Either that, or their staff were becoming slack." Alarm bells rang, but not loudly enough to make him have second thoughts.
On Sunday March 12, Oakley arrived for the three-day trial at Parexel's private unit in Northwick Park. He wanted to grab the bed closest to the window. Everybody was in good spirits on Sunday evening. There was a spirit of camaraderie. There were eight volunteers, including two who would be given placebos. One of them was Rob, who has asked us not to include his surname. Rob, now 32, is an actor and, one year on, is still worried that if it is known he was one of the "Elephant Men" he will find it hard to get work.
Rob, a first-time triallist, had a mini panic attack shortly before it was due to start. He had always prided himself on his ability to cope with jabs, but when Parexel checked his blood to make sure he was a suitable candidate, he almost passed out. If he couldn't cope with one needle, he thought, what would he be like over a two-day trial and then having 12 more blood tests over two months? "I thought, 'God, I don't want to do this', and my whole life started feeling shit. Later that day I was on the phone to my mum, and she was like, 'Well, if you don't think you can do it, don't do it. You're a grown man, you can make your own decision.' " Rob decided to go ahead. His mother had lent him money for a trip to Los Angeles and he was determined to pay her back.
Like Oakley, he was surprised at the speed with which Parexel rushed through their literature. He knew the drug had not been tested on humans, but was told that there was just risk of headache and nausea. He tried to skim-read the Parexel documents as the doctor addressed them, but he stopped. "I thought it was a bit rude to read while the doctor was talking, so I put it down."
By Sunday night, he'd overcome his nervousness and was enjoying himself. It all felt like a "weird adventure". The atmosphere was relaxed - he played pool with Ryan Wilson, a trainee plumber. "That night was a bit of fun. We're all away from home, there's a hostel kind of vibe, we're all doing something unusual." They ate their pre-trial diet of cheese and crackers, drank water, and joked around. "Ryan was going to be the first in our room to be injected, and I said when he was, he should do this..." Rob acts out somebody having a fit. "Just for a laugh. The nurses knew we were doing it for a laugh - ah, the lads! Not long after he was injected, he was doing it for real. That was Ryan who lost his toes and fingers."
Navneet Modi had just completed his MBA in London and was planning to return to India, to launch his career. Modi's father is a successful entrepreneur, supplying electricity-measuring meters to millions of households in India. He could have joined that business, but he hoped to blaze his own trail. Modi, then 24, had done two previous trials with Parexel. He wasn't desperate for money, but he was too proud to tell his father he was running short. He wanted to be able to say he'd stood on his own feet in England. He says he would never have considered being a guinea pig in India, but here in Britain he knew he'd be safe. His previous two tests, for asthma and malaria treatments, were a doddle. He was going to use the £2,000 from the trial to pay off his bills and buy a flight home.
It was when he went for the initial screening that Modi realised this was the first time the drug would be tested on humans. "Other guys left, so I did ask the doctor - I said, 'Is it unusual or risky?' - and he said, 'Certainly not, because if it was risky, it wouldn't be tested on humans.' The doctors from Parexel assured us that things wouldn't go wrong; the worst case was that we would have a headache or nausea that would be gone in a couple of hours."
The eight volunteers were divided into two mini wards - Oakley, Modi, restaurant bar manager Nino Abdelhady and a placebo in one; Rob, Wilson, a placebo and the sixth triallist, who has never been publicly identified, in another. On Monday morning, they were woken between 7am and 7.30am. Again, Oakley was unhappy, feeling things were being rushed. "I was a bit annoyed because I like to wake up a bit earlier and have a shower. So I splashed some water over my face and got back into bed and they started to wire me up with ECGs, etc. Also, I didn't have the chance to drink much. Normally I like to have a couple of glasses of water in the morning."
The trial started at 8am. Oakley was the first to be injected, and the others followed at 10-minute intervals. The drug was infused into his right arm through a cannula over a period of six minutes - it later emerged that this was 15 times quicker than it had been administered to monkeys in earlier trials, making an adverse reaction more likely. After 30 minutes he had a mild headache. After an hour, his head was pounding and he had excruciating lower back pain. "It was agony. I said to one of the nurses, calmly, that I'm having a headache, it's huge and I've never had anything like this before. The nurses came over and were really nice. One started massaging my back, and they put a cold compress on my head and that helped soothe the pain." But things got worse. By now he was doubled up in pain.
A few minutes later, 28-year-old Nino Abdelhady, who followed Oakley, was in agonies. "He was in the toilet for an hour. I think he passed out," Oakley says. "But he was very, very shy in regard to what was happening to him. He had diarrhoea and so on, and was throwing up."
Modi was next, and his reaction was the most violent. "He went wild," Oakley says. "Nav went crazy - he was trying to get up and get out, he was thinking that if he got out of the hospital, it would stop hurting and he'd be fine. Which was ridiculous. I remember me and Nino looking at each other and looking at him and thinking, 'Pull yourself together, man! Haha!' " He laughs at his own impatience - little did he know the seriousness at that point. "We were thinking the only way to try and fix this is to let them do their job. Well, this is what we thought.
"They had to pull the curtain around Nav. He started throwing up first. I was one of the last, but when I threw up, I threw up big. I probably brought up over a litre of bile. I didn't know you had that much bile in your stomach. A whole container of green bile - I thought, 'Whoah! What the heck is that?' The nurse looked at me and went, 'Bile.' Even she was shocked by how much I'd brought up."
Modi says he thought he was dying. "I started shouting, 'Doctor, this pain is killing me, do something.' Because I was shouting so loud, a couple of the nurses started making me calm down. I was really scared. About 20 minutes later I started to have the backache. It was such an acute pressure that you couldn't lie down. I was jumping up and down on the bed. I wanted to leave. I said, 'Come on, I don't want your money, let me out because I think you guys will kill me. I don't want to die, I want to get away from this place.' Then the doctor from Parexel came and said, 'Look, this is the safest place on earth for you now, so please lie down.' "
In fact, the safest place was downstairs in the intensive care unit. What the volunteers were experiencing was a cytokine storm. The Parexel literature had mentioned its possibility, but had explained it simply in terms of headache, nausea and possibly hives (itchy bumps). What was happening was that a drug supposed to dampen the immune system, to stop it attacking itself, ended up destroying it, and the volunteers' organs were shutting down.
Parexel's literature had also warned what to do in case of a cytokine storm: apply a certain dose of a certain steroid. Incredibly, nobody from Parexel appeared to have read their own literature. It seems they spent the day calling on the international medical community for help, when the solution was twice written in their own documentation. The volunteers were just given painkillers and intravenous fluids. Around 4pm, a doctor applied a low-dose steroid, which temporarily eased the symptoms. When they finally discovered what to do, it emerged that they did not have enough of the drug to cope with the crisis. Modi had been sedated because he was so distraught, Wilson because he was going downhill so fast; the others were drifting in and out of consciousness.
The volunteers still have so many unanswered questions. One they all ask is this: if Parexel knew what was happening in the first ward, why did they go ahead and test the volunteers in the second? "At the very least, they could have saved the last person from dosing, because they knew about the violent reactions," Oakley says.
Rob was in the second ward. "It was around 9.10am when they inserted the cannula into my arm. I was the last one. They did one after me, but he was a placebo. It was all very scheduled and military. It felt like, get it done, quick, quick, quick, next in. It was an industry, a chicken factory, in and out with a few smiles. I think lots of people would think of medical trials being run by progressives passionate about curing Aids or cancer, but it's nothing like that."
As soon as the liquid started going through ,they asked if he was feeling cold. "I'm like, 'No, no, no. I'm OK.' Then I started to see people around me shivering. Hindsight tells me that the other two in the room had already made major complaints because it was having a massive effect, but they still continued to inject me. So they could have chosen not to inject me. But it was like, 'OK, they're having problems, but let's just get it done, let's get them all done.' I think that's a breach of human rights."
Before long he was freezing. "It's like if you were dipped into the Antarctic and then lifted out with no clothes on. My body was trying to generate heat because of the cold. So we were shaking, the body was just doing its own thing. Three people in the room doing the same thing. I think they call it rigours. Then came the aches and pains. It was like, I don't know, labour pains. Women will hate me for saying that, but it was really deep in the spine and in the hip joints. Everywhere I moved, it wasn't right. I'd bring my knees up and that would hurt, and then I'd twist and that would hurt, and I had a sharp pain in my groin. The placebo was after me and he was just sitting there reading a book, thinking, 'My God!' I remember the doctor said, 'Oh well, we know who's the placebo then!' Mr Funny. Asshole!"
It wasn't until almost midnight, 16 hours after the drug had first been administered, that the triallists were moved to intensive care and given the correct dose of steroids. By now, doctors feared for their lives. Families were informed that the trial had not gone as well as expected. Katrina, Oakley's partner, did not receive a phone call until 3.30am on Tuesday because Parexel had failed to take a contact number for her. She was told that Oakley had suffered a reaction, but nothing more. "She got to the hospital at 4am. It was gloomy and dark, and she was wandering around, hysterical," Oakley says. "Finally, a doctor found her and pointed her to intensive care. One of the doctors explained that we were on machines and we had tubes going in and were really swollen. They prepared her for the worst because we weren't a pretty sight. They said they were doing their best, but they didn't know what the chances of surviving were." Despite the warning, Katrina was shocked by his appearance. "She said my head looked like a ball and my eyes were like slits. My stomach was completely swollen. She thought I had my hands over my stomach till she saw them over the side. I was shivering, my whole body vibrating. I had a temperature of 41/42 degrees - 43/44, you're dead."
It was Abdelhady's girlfriend, Myfanwy Marshall, who first referred to the Northwick Park Six as elephant men. There is one photograph that has become synonymous with the trial - Marshall is outside the hospital, on her mobile phone, half crazed, literally crying for help. She worked for the BBC so knew how to contact the media. She told anybody who would listen that her beautiful boyfriend had been hideously disfigured, turned into an elephant man, and that he was dying.
Rob says that was exaggerated. "We were just very puffy and bloated, pumped full of steroids and liquids. Our eyes were orange because of the toxins. As soon as she made the Elephant Man remark, everybody thought we were melted, toxic waste. Do you want to see a picture of me when I was in intensive care?" It's not very clear, but it is the only photograph that exists of Rob at his worst - he is swollen beyond recognition, but recognisably human. Still, the Elephant Man comparison served a purpose. Before long there were reporters and film crews outside. "The press were like lunatics hanging outside the hospital," Rob says. "I had a little TV in my room, and my family didn't want me to watch it because it was like, 'They're in a critical state, some of them could die.' They thought that if you hear that, you start emotionally gearing for death and then you're more likely to die, aren't you? I never thought I was going to die. I'm not a pessimist."
Oakley was also trying to look on the bright side. "There's no point in being down when everything else is down enough. So I was trying to be cheerful, but I probably wasn't making sense. My memory was shot to pieces by this drug. When I started coming around, I asked them to bring a TV in and the Commonwealth Games were on. I could watch the same race four or five times, because it appeared throughout the day, and even after the fifth time I'd go, 'Woooooh! I wonder who's going to win this one?' "
Recovery was gradual. After eight days, Oakley went to the toilet for the first time by himself. "I nearly passed out. I'd lost 13kg. We had no muscles. We were like 90-year-olds. But our organs were starting to be able to look after themselves again. So we were taken off the machines and moved to a private wing. The doctors were surprised Ryan made it. Very surprised he didn't die... we were all that close [he clicks his fingers] to being like Ryan."
Ryan Wilson, 20, was in hospital for four months. After being given the drug in just four minutes, he suffered heart, liver and kidney failure, pneumonia, septicaemia and frostbite-like symptoms that resulted in his toes and sections of his feet being amputated and several fingertips falling off. He has said he is still haunted by the words of his father, who told him the night before the trial: "Don't do it. Your body is a temple." Last October he said that the biggest blow has been the break-up of his four-year relationship with Michelle Bayford, the girlfriend who had sat beside his hospital bed for so long.
The five other volunteers were released from hospital after a few weeks. They knew they were weak, but assumed it was just a matter of time before their experience was behind them. "I thought I'd get back to normal in six months' time, that's what was expected from the NHS doctors," Modi says. But it wasn't to be. Six months on, and the volunteers are becoming increasingly embittered. TeGenero has gone bust. Parexel, the US multinational that carried out the trial, is refusing to accept liability, apologise or even talk to the volunteers' lawyers.
Meanwhile, a report by Richard Powell, professor of clinical immunology at Nottingham University, concluded that the triallists' life expectancy has been reduced. Another report by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) concluded that Parexel is not to blame, and that "an unpredicted biological action of the drug in humans is the most likely cause of the adverse reactions". But the MHRA is the body that allowed the trial to go ahead in Britain, even though German authorities initially refused to allow the drug to be tested in Germany. If the MHRA report criticised Parexel for being unprepared, it would implicitly criticise itself for allowing the trial. The volunteers say there is a conflict of interest, and ask how the MHRA can conclude that the reaction was "unpredicted" when its possibility was mentioned in the Parexel protocol.
Martyn Day, the lawyer representing four of the volunteers, says, "There are a whole load of questions Parexel needs to answer. The sad thing is that neither the MHRA nor Duff [Professor Gordon Duff, whose Expert Scientific Group, established to discover what went wrong, issued 22 new guidelines for future phase 1 trials] forced them into answering those questions. It may be that the only route for getting those answers for my clients is by taking Parexel through the courts."
It's September when I meet Navneet Modi in a London cafe. He had hoped to be back in India by now, but has had to remain in England for tests and treatment. He doesn't recognise himself these days, not least physically. Since the trial, he has put on 13kg - he now weighs 76kg. He has stomach problems, amnesia and is exhausted. For the first two or three months, he says he could barely walk. "I couldn't iron my own clothes, couldn't cook for myself. Everything I did made me tired - even watching a movie. Beforehand I had so much stamina. I could work 24/7. I remember once working through a 36-hour stretch. I have had a complete blackout twice, and I forget words."
Like so many drug volunteers away from home, he didn't tell his family because he didn't want to worry them unnecessarily. When they read about the trial in newspapers in India and saw his name, his parents were devastated. "They said, 'Why didn't you tell us? How could you face everything on your own?' " He felt as if he had betrayed them, and went straight home to convince them that he wasn't really an elephant man. He downplayed the problems and risks.
He talks about the ways he has changed over the past year. He used to be so full of fun and adventure. "I'd be out partying and clubbing. I wasn't bothered about taking risks. I bought gold then stored it, then sold it, made profits and losses. I was quite mischievous. Now I'm a sober person. Mischievous was better." Now he'll work in his father's business.
This year Modi was planning to settle down. His parents had hoped to arrange a marriage for him, but he has told them that he is not ready. "I don't want to waste somebody else's life. It could be that nothing happens to me, but you don't know. I didn't say that to my parents, exactly. Back home, it would be difficult for a widow to remarry." The doctors told him that he must stay here for tests for at least a year after the trial. He says he is lonely, bored and tired.
A few months ago, the volunteers received an interim payment of £10,000. None of them was working, and, not surprisingly, it didn't last long. Modi is irate that Parexel is heaping the blame on TeGenero. As far as the volunteers are concerned, the drug might have been a good one - the problem was that it, and the antidote, were not administered correctly. What does he think Parexel owes him? "Well, they can't give me my health back. If they could, I'd ask for my health and just to be back to normal life. Money would allow me to go home and get on with my treatment."
It emerged that TeGenero had insured the volunteers for only £2m. Martyn Day was appalled when he heard this. "Any lawyer worth their salt can tell you this is a ridiculous amount. We insure for about £9m a case. When you're talking about six people sharing £2m, it's a joke." The case is further complicated because Parexel has told the lawyers that if they issue proceedings, the £2m disappears off the table, and the danger, however small, is that the volunteers could end up with less. "Our guys would much rather this was resolved out of court. But the fact is Parexel are burying their head in the sand and hoping we might go away. They are blanking us. Here we have six guys fighting for their lives and an American company uses and abuses their bodies and now refuses to have anything to do with them."
Parexel are not just ignoring the lawyers. The Guardian's calls also meet with a blank. In May, Parexel issued a statement saying that the MHRA report concluded that "nothing Parexel did contributed to the adverse reactions experienced by the study participants", adding that it would not issue any further statements unless there are significant developments. In December, after Duff's Expert Scientific Group issued its final report, Parexel reissued the identical statement, simply adding that it looked forward to adopting new protocols approved by the government and implemented by the bio/pharmaceutical industry.
Day is baffled by Parexel's unwillingness to talk. "I have little doubt that a British company would meet us," he says. The strange thing, Day says, is that if this trial had taken place in America, the victims would sue for hundreds of millions. He admits that it's difficult to say what is fair compensation. "Our system largely compensates you for damage that has already occurred. The difficulty here is that we are saying there is a real chance these guys are going to develop cancer, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis. It is the most horrible list of gruesome illnesses you could get."
What would he regard as a decent sum? "Certainly £1m each for what they have to face. Whether it's more is difficult to assess. A million quid would be saying these guys face a terribly uncertain future. They could end up being relatively fine, but they could end up being significantly worse, in which case £1m will end up being nothing like enough." Day has given Parexel a deadline - if they did not respond, he would issue proceedings. In November, Parexel chief executive Josef H von Rickenbach was awarded a bonus package worth $1.8m. In 2005, the company made more than $100m profit.
Rob looks in great nick - broad-chested, muscular, not an ounce of fat on him. Since the £10,000 came through, he has hired a personal trainer to help him get back in condition. It's only when he starts talking that you notice something unusual. He says that TeGenero had been told to test the drug initially on a bonobo - an ape that has DNA 98% identical to human DNA - but ended up testing it on a macaque, which is cheaper and has only 94% identical DNA. He comes to a stop and looks embarrassed. "I've lost my train of thought. It's one of the downsides. My memory keeps cutting out. And I feel spaced out all the time."
At the time, Rob didn't think he had been badly affected, although he remembers being shocked when they inserted all the wires and tubes and put him on dialysis. But six months on, he worries about everything. For instance, he says, over the past few days he has felt something weird around the heart, and isn't sure whether it's a palpitation or indigestion. He doesn't know if he is being a hypochondriac or just duly wary? "Do I spend the rest of my life wondering when I get a sore throat if it is thyroid cancer?"
Like Modi, Rob's lifestyle has changed. He eats more healthily, doesn't take drugs, keeps away from smoky environments. In a way, he says, the whole thing has made him more confident. He will stand up for his rights. "If anything, I feel more driven." If he does have, say, five years left to live, he wants to have a bloody good time of it. If he turns out to be fine, he wants to be compensated for what he's been through and the future uncertainty. "I want to be living a great life now because these people did it, they are responsible, and for them to go, well, we can pay you for loss of earnings and your time in hospital, but other than that it's not our fault, they can fuck themselves. This company can afford to give us more than pocket money."
The compensation could be life-changing. It would enable him to do some of the things he has always wanted to do. "There's a children's animation series I want to make, so the money would go towards that, and investing to make sure my parents are financially secure, and to enjoy what I have left, if indeed there is a cap on my life." But, so far, since the trial, he's been unable to work properly. The thing that has made him most fearful for his future is the news about Oakley.
Oakley has been diagnosed by Professor Powell as showing the early signs of lymphoma. Powell also found irregular cells in Oakley's immune system. "He said, 'Right now, you've got more of these cells than a full-blown Aids patient would have.' So it was like, wooh! OK. I'm not talking as an expert, but apparently when cancer gets into the lymphs, you're history."
For a while Oakley kept the bad news from Katrina. Like Modi, he had not even told his family, back home in New Zealand, about the trial. He has been able to work only occasionally. "I still have joint and muscle pain and headaches, but it comes and goes. It's the concentration that is really affecting me. Concentration and memory. As a driving instructor, it's very hard to concentrate on looking ahead, being aware of what's happening. I've tried to get out there, but one lesson would wipe me out for a couple of days. I'm trying to work because I have no income. So from a trial which I thought was an easy £2,000, suddenly our income is halved." Actually, he says, he's one of the lucky ones. "At least Katrina is still able to work to help pay the bills. Some of the others really are in a destitute situation."
Oakley is a gentle man, always trying to make the best of a bad situation. "I've tried not to let it change me. I suppose I try to live life a lot more for the moment than before. Have you heard of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo? Well, we've been meaning to go to that for years. This year we went because we don't know what will happen next year."
Try as he may, not working, having no energy, the aches and pains have all made him irritable. He and Katrina had hoped to start a family, but that's been put on hold. "If Katrina is supporting me and the family on her own... well, in this day and age, it's just about impossible to do that. And if things start going wrong with multiple sclerosis or arthritis, it would break my heart if I wasn't able to do anything with the kids, even just picking them up."
It's November 2006, eight months after the trial, and Modi phones up out of the blue. He's on the verge of tears. "I am facing so many problems with my bowels and my urine. I am desperate to go home, but I can't because I don't have the money for the treatment. It's so pathetic that this can happen in a country like this, and the government does nothing. I have too much pain. We have been left isolated by everybody. I want to go on hunger strike to let the world know what is happening to me." It all pours out, barely a breath between sentences.
A day later, Rob phones. He sounds equally distraught. He's been to the Parexel unit at Northwick Park and done some secret filming. "I've got it on film. The guy there told me it was all the fault of the NHS because they said we didn't need to be in intensive care. This is rubbish. As far as we're concerned the NHS and Northwick Park saved our lives." He says he doesn't understand what has happened to him; he feels permanently stressed. "I came close to whacking somebody on the tube today." Has he ever done that before? He sounds shocked. "No, of course not."
It's coming up to a year since the trial. In January, the men received the results of neuro-psychological tests confirming that they are "profoundly affected by poor memory and concentration". Parexel has not admitted negligence or offered a compensation deal beyond the £2m insurance payout. Day is preparing to issue proceedings on behalf of his clients. The volunteers are not in regular touch with each other, but occasionally hear about one another. In December, Wilson said that he feared he might never walk again. Rob feels stronger, but still doesn't trust himself to remember lines. Modi has decided he doesn't want to talk about the trial any more. Oakley is managing a few more driving lessons and keeping his fingers crossed that the worrying cells don't develop into full-blown cancer. He dreams of being given the all-clear, but knows it's unlikely. "Maybe I'll get to 90 years old, and they'll say, 'Oh yeah, I think he's going to be OK.' "
