Why cancer changes the way you think about health
James O’Mahoney says what came after his treatment inspired a new perspective on living well for as long as possible
Before my diagnosis, I thought I had a reasonably good handle on my health. But in my mid-thirties, I was diagnosed with testicular cancer. What followed was surgery and three months of chemotherapy.
The public healthcare system saved my life; I will never say otherwise. But what surprised me most was what happened afterwards. Once treatment ended, there was a strange void. Suddenly, you are expected to get back to normal life again. Physically, I was struggling with fatigue, brain fog, high blood pressure and declining kidney function. Mentally, I felt tired and a little lost.
What nobody really spoke about was recovery beyond survival. There were lots of conversations about scans and medication, but very few around lifestyle, long-term wellbeing or how to rebuild your health after something so physically demanding.
Like many people, I was told I had been unlucky and there was no identifiable reason I got testicular cancer. What that conversation with the oncologist sparked in me, though, was a curiosity about the bigger picture of health and why some people seem luckier than others. That curiosity led me into areas such as epigenetics, lifestyle medicine and cellular health. I became fascinated by the idea that while we cannot control everything, we can influence far more than we realise.
That research eventually led me to therapies such as hyperbaric oxygen and red-light therapy. Within a few weeks of trying hyperbaric oxygen therapy, I noticed improvements in fatigue and mental clarity. It changed how I thought about recovery.
I began to realise that health is not simply about avoiding disease. It is about supporting the body’s ability to function well for as long as possible.
People often assume the therapies are the main thing we do at The REGEN Room but the lifestyle side actually comes first. Our five pillars focus on nervous system regulation, environment, movement, inflammation and nutrition. The therapies sit on top of those foundations, not instead of them.
This is not about rejecting medicine. I have worked in life sciences for most of my career and, without modern healthcare, I would not be here to write this.
One thing my experience taught me is how reactive our culture around health has become. Modern healthcare systems are brilliant at treating illness and saving lives. But I sometimes wonder whether they have unintentionally encouraged many of us to see health as something managed by the healthcare system rather than something we actively build.
That shift in thinking became a huge part of my own journey and ultimately shaped The Regen Room.
What interested me most was the space that exists after treatment and outside traditional healthcare. The point where people start asking themselves how they want to live the last 20 or 30 years of their lives.
Cancer forces you to think differently about time. When you sit for days on end in an oncology ward in your thirties, you start thinking about the future in a way most people avoid. You think about your children growing up. You think about what their lives will look like. You think about whether you will still be here to see it.
That became the deeper motivation behind everything I learned afterwards.
I do not think most people are obsessed with living to 100. I think most people simply want to stay healthy enough to enjoy life. To feel good, stay active, be there for their families and keep doing the things that matter to them as they get older.
That is why the conversation around healthspan matters. Not because we can control everything. We cannot. But because the choices we make today influence how we live tomorrow.
The public healthcare system saved my life. The Regen Room was built around a simple question that came afterwards: what can we do to give ourselves the best possible chance of living those years well?
James O’Mahoney, Co-Founder, The REGEN Room
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