Battered but unbowed

HAVING survived two bouts of cancer, a Quilty mother-of-four is well placed to assess the benefits of the Clare Cancer Support Centre in Kilnamona.

 

Still suffering from the side-effects of chemotherapy seven years later, Theresa Murrihy appreciates the support and advice she receives from meeting other cancer survivors and specialists.

Her tongue has got so burnt, she finds it difficult to tell hot from cold. She also ended up with a massive kidney stone that was treated and became a low-grade kidney infection, requiring an antibiotic for the rest of her life.

Born and reared in New York, she came to Quilty when she was 14. She was educated at St Joseph’s Secondary School, Spanish Point and then went to Galway, where she trained as a chef. She got married to Pat and is now 34 years in Quilty. She regards herself as one of the locals at this stage.

In March 2005, Theresa, who was a chef in Bushy Park in Ennis, started to experience “overwhelming tiredness”, which required her to put her head down for a rest. When she came home in the evenings, she had to do the same thing sitting on a couch, which was unusual because she always had loads of energy. When this continued during a three-day break in Killarney, she knew something was wrong.

She was 45 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a six-year-old child and three young adults, who were 23, 24, and 28 respectively.

Following a mammogram at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital, Limerick with the help of a Dublin-based breast scan nurse, Michelle Walsh, she had an ultrasound.

Once the nurses said a biopsy was necessary, Theresa knew she had breast cancer. “After I had the biopsy, I came out from the changing room and I was crying. My daughter was with me and I had to pretend something because I didn’t know anything but I just knew my own mind. And I said to her ‘oh my God, that was the death of me. It hurt so much.’ It didn’t hurt one bit. But that’s the time I had the meltdown about the whole thing,” she recalled.

The results showed she had a malignant tumour. “The reason I have such an affiliation to the centre and what I think it does now is when I was diagnosed, nobody else had breast cancer that I knew of. So I had nobody to even ask questions,” she said.

Within a week of being diagnosed, she went for an operation but had to have another surgical procedure when it was discovered she had lobular breast cancer and had to have a full mastectomy.

While Theresa found all the nurses and doctors brilliant and extremely diligent, she feels it is great to be able to talk to another cancer sufferer in the centre who has been through a similar experience and learn from them.

“I rang them in desperation one Saturday. I was in that bed and thought I was gonna die from the chemotherapy. I got a really nice nurse at the end of the phone. She faxed through the anti-sickness medication. She faxed through everything for me.

“But it didn’t make me any wiser as to what was wrong with me. She gave me the medication to cure me at the time. It didn’t even do that. Even till this day, I look back and I still have side effects from chemotherapy.

“I now know from talking to people over in the cancer centre, that I know people 17 years on, that still have side effects. So it isn’t just me. I also learned, as late as last Saturday; they don’t do the surgery I went through any more because of medical advances.

“As well as the support from everybody, I can go over to the centre and say ‘seven years on, I had pain the other day. Did you have that pain? Is it common to have that?’ Rather than having to ring the breast care nurse and they’ll say this lady’s on the phone again’.

“I had 14 lymph nodes removed, which means I have slight lymphedema, complete numbness under my arm,” she said.

As a result of anticipation nausea, she has to shut her eyes going past the chemotherapy room and even talking about cancer can make her stomach nauseous.

About three years after her first diagnosis, a massive tumour was found in her womb, which required a full hysterectomy.

Her biopsies had to go to specialists in Galway, who sent them to Belfast. Belfast weren’t happy, so they sent it to London.

“Doctors wanted to know were the margins big enough because the tumour was so big, would I have to have radium or not. But luckily enough, they said no, I didn’t. So, I live on, winging a prayer. I don’t dwell on it. There are days when you’d hear somebody else gets it. You do dwell on it. You do get upset. So that’s why I get so passionate about the centre in Kilnamona.

“I feel that I can help people who are just diagnosed, as well as the person who’s 10 years, and I get panicky, I can ask them something,” she said.

Theresa hopes the centre’s inaugural walk can develop into a major annual flagship fundraiser, which will realise up to €50,000 in four or five years time to fund the main core services.

Stressing people don’t have to be a marathon runner, she notes her mother, who is 73, will be participating in the event and will be pushing a buggy with her two great-grandchildren in memory of Theresa’s father, who died of cancer. She is doing a second lap for her daughter.

She says people can walk or jog or just come along and help with providing refreshments. She feels the centre in Kilnamona offers a homely, safe and comfortable environment, which is far better than a clinical facility on the grounds of a hospital.

“You’ll always be given a cup of tea in Kilnamona. You’ll always be given a bit of food. You’ll always have a bit of craic, and that’s what I think survivors and people need. The amount of people I know, that you push to get in the door of it, you’re nearly pulling them to get them out of it,” she said.

Because of the problem with her lymph nodes, she doesn’t have any power in her arm and can’t return to her job in Bushy Park.

“There are no two cancers that affect the same people. While one person can sail back to work the following week, another person might have had the same thing but it affects their body, their whole system.

“The biggest thing about cancer is you are never free. After five years, people might say ‘yeah, we don’t need to see you as often.’ But you live with that word from the day you were diagnosed, no matter what age you are. You get up, you get on with your life. But when I hear somebody close to me or somebody I know is diagnosed and they’ve had a different symptom or whatever, the alarm does go off in my head again. I start worrying.

“I know somebody 18 years on that has reoccurred. It can be any one of us. The support of the centre is what you need. It’s brilliant for when you’re starting and that we can help so many people. It’s twice as good for when the lifeline is cut with the hospital who have to deal with hundreds of patients,” she said.