Dealing with cancer as an adult is tough, but what if you’re diagnosed as a child or a teenager? Here, four young people tell their stories of when they got cancer, how they coped and where they are now
Niamh Galbraith (18), Kilrush, Co Clare
Then
I WAS ONLY 16 MONTHS OLD when my cancer story began. So there I was , 17 years ago, a happy little toddler, living life and lapping up the attention. I had just been diagnosed with asthma and I was at the doctors for a check-up when the doctor noticed I was really pale, even more than usual.
They took some blood samples and we were sent home. That night, there was a knock on our door and there stood our GP. A doctor from Limerick Regional Hospital had rang him to tell us we were to come to the hospital first thing the next day. He also mentioned that my blood samples looked more like water, and that he was very anxious.
So we set off for Limerick bright and early next day, where more tests were done, and I then received my first of many lumbar punctures.
The results of this lumbar puncture allowed the doctors to diagnose me with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia. I was diagnosed on a Friday in April 1994 and was sent to Dublin that Sunday.
I settled in quite nicely at Our Lady’s Hospital in Crumlin. I started my chemo in April and finished in October of the same year.
To this day, I feel complete guilt when I reflect on my illness, as the greatest toll was taken by my parents and family, despite me fighting the disease. Six months does not sound like a long time, but when you have three other children to look after and you live in west Clare and have to commute to Dublin so often, it is too long.
Because I was so young when I fought cancer, growing up I tended to hide it from my friends, like it was something to be ashamed of. I hid it from all of them for years, never feeling brave enough to tell them that the reason I had to go to Dublin sometimes during the year was for a check-up in Crumlin and not just a shopping trip like I said. As a result, I never felt like any of my friends knew the real me.
However, being a cancer survivor made me realise that all I ever want to do is to help those who are sick. I like the idea of being able to say, ‘I was as sick as you before and look at me now! You can beat it, like I did.’
Now
I AM STUDYING general nursing in NUI Galway, and I love it. I have just started my second year. I can’t help but feel that if I had not been sick and experienced hospitals and encountered doctors and nurses that I would not have even considered studying becoming a nurse.
Cancer had negative and positive effects on my life. But thankfully I found CanTeen and now the effects are solely positive. CanTeen has helped me face my experience and I now know that defeating cancer is nothing to be ashamed of. It really is something to be proud of. And I am.
Dylan Joynt (22), Wicklow town
Then
I WAS FIRST DIAGNOSED with a malignant brain tumour when I was seven years old. The tumour was inoperable. However, I received radiation treatment in St Luke’s hospital to try and reduce the size of it. At first my hair fell out, which was a big shock, and then I got so sick that I couldn’t walk or talk, and I kept slipping in and out of consciousness. This lasted for almost eight weeks, but after that things slowly started to turn around.
I was initially treated in Beaumont hospital on the children’s ward. I met a lot of nurses that I became very good friends with. The food in Beaumont hospital was very nice; I was addicted to their toast and real butter.
All of my family came to see me in the hospital; many travelled from different parts of the world including Switzerland, France, Australia and the USA. Many of my friends visited, and even my teacher from third class came in to see me. He brought almost 30 letters from all the boys in the class – this made me feel loved.
I recovered in my nana’s house in Ashford. All of my family played a huge part in me getting better; right from getting me to sit up and talk to getting me back on my feet and walking again. When I went back to school at age 10 it felt good because I was with my friends, but sometimes it felt like a pain because I was treated differently. For example, everyone got homework except me. Yes, I do hate homework, but still I didn’t want to be different. I had also put on a lot of weight, due to the steroids, so it took a while before I could get back into playing football and was often left out or not included.
I was beginning to feel really down and very different. No one seemed to really understand what I had been through. Everyone was really happy that I had recovered physically from my tumour but no one seemed to realise what I was going through emotionally and mentally.
However, my whole life changed for the better when I joined a group called CanTeen. This is a group where I can give love and receive it at the same time. I am accepted for who I am. I can talk about my feelings and worries with the group if I want to, or I can just have great fun and know all my friends understand me and understand what life is like having had cancer.
Now
NOWADAYS I AM feeling good. Last year, I did a digital creative-design course in Wicklow and now I am doing a course in 3D game design in Bray. I still have yearly check-ups but they have all been clear so far.
It’s almost 15 years since I was first diagnosed, and it’s been quite a journey to get to where I am now. I have had lots of great support from friends and family but my CanTeen friends have not only given me support, they have inspired me, motivated me and, most of all, loved me.
Aileen Sweeney (22), Fermoy, Co Cork
Then
I CAN STILL REMEMBER the moment I discovered the lump on my neck. It was a Thursday afternoon after school, and I was in Tesco with my mum and my friend Aisling.
I was waiting at the checkout for mum to pay and rubbing my neck when I realised there was something under the skin that filled my cupped hand. I immediately panicked as I’d never been sick in my life and the thought of it scared me. I remember thinking it must be mumps.
That was October 7th 2004. But I wasn’t diagnosed until December 14th, even though we got it checked out within a week of me finding it. I had nearly every test possible in Cork University Hospital (CUH). This coming from a girl who had, up until this point, never had a blood test in her life.
I had X-rays, blood tests, ultrasounds, fine-needle aspirations. I was tested for TB, and eventually my mum pushed for a lymph-node biopsy, as it was now December with no results. The lump, which my friends had christened “Lulu the lump”, became known as “Tina the tumour”. Little did we know what was to come.
On December 14th my mum rang the school to tell them that she would pick me up. We went out for a coffee and chatted and mum then said it: I had Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a type of cancer.
I met with Dr Seamus O’Reilly in CUH the following morning and went for a CT scan. Not a very pleasant experience, but of course I’m a CT pro now having notched up a fair share of scans (and radiation). Dr O’Reilly told me that I needed between four to six months of chemotherapy. He told me that I would start treatment in the Mercy Hospital as soon as possible on St Theresa’s Ward, the adult’s ward, even though I was still only 15.
The day before I was scheduled to start my treatment Dr O’Reilly came in to tell me that I was being transferred to Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children, in Dublin. I was told I would have six months of chemo and hopefully not require any radiotherapy.
My hair took about four months to fall out because I had so much of it; I eventually got so sick of it that I cut the rest of it off. The next few months were the longest and shortest of my life. I found myself living from treatment to treatment, and just existing in between. I received so much mail from everyone it was overwhelming at times. I did a lot of growing up. I went to school whenever I could, to see all my friends and let them know how things were going. They even had a surprise birthday party in the classroom for me one day.
I became obsessed with the illness, reading everything I could find on it. Even well after I was in remission, and even now over five years later, I’m still paranoid and fixated on the thought that the cancer will relapse. But as each new year creeps by the worry becomes less and less.
Now
I am now 22 and living life to the full. My hair is longer than before I got sick and even my yearly CT scans have stopped, given that I’m over the five-year mark. I just have a check-up every 12 months. I am in my fourth and final year of zoology at UCC. I have spent the last three summers in South Africa volunteering to work with vervet monkeys in rehabilitation centres and have found a true passion in primate conservation. I am currently completing research on their behaviour for my final-year research project. I fell in love with South Africa and I also fell in love in South Africa; my life is well and truly back on track, but you never forget.
Paudy Byrne (25), Dundalk, Co Louth
Then
AS FAR AS I CAN REMEMBER it all began when I started secondary school back in 1999. I was a carefree 13-year-old, but suddenly one day I began vomiting for no reason. This started the ball rolling for other symptoms, such as massive headaches, extreme weight loss, forgetfulness, blurred vision and severe depression. They thought a strain on my eyes was causing the headaches and I was prescribed glasses. I weighed six stone, my head felt like it would explode and yet doctors could find nothing medically wrong with me. They thought it was psychological.
In July 2001, I collapsed in my aunt’s house in Ennis. The local GP diagnosed me as having depression but this was just a symptom of the illness. It was a very surreal time as I only remember a few minutes of the next couple of weeks. My family was afraid to leave me alone because of the depression.
On August 18th, 2001, I collapsed again at home. My family couldn’t take any more and immediately drove me to Crumlin hospital with a referral letter from my GP. They did lots of tests and scans and rushed me to Beaumont hospital at midnight by ambulance. After more tests and scans, I was diagnosed with a brain tumour in the pineal gland (over my right eye). It was the size of a golf ball. The hospital quickly set about removing some of the brain fluid.
Later I found out from my dad that I would have died over the next day or two had they not removed the excess fluid. I had a 10-hour operation to remove the tumour. There were complications during surgery. I had a stroke on the right side of my brain which left the entire left side of my body weakened and left me in a coma for 14 weeks, by which stage I was a “drooling, paralysed vegetable” in a wheelchair.
In May 2002 I was discharged from Beaumont and admitted to Dún Laoghaire National Rehabilitation Hospital as I couldn’t walk, talk or move. At this point, although I was cancer free, I was extremely soft in the head and was still being fed through a nasogastric tube in my nose. The feed always made me sick, which brought the tube back up, and it wasn’t very nice getting it replaced.
I was forced to leave school the summer before my Junior Cert and my class had moved on in the system, but I was slowly integrated back into it. I started it in September 2003 in third year and did my Junior Cert at 18 in a class of 15-year-olds.
I stayed at school for the Leaving Cert in which I got one of the highest marks in the year. I graduated in May 2006 and won the Student of the Year award. I started studying at Dundalk Institute of Technology in 2007. Initially I enjoyed it and was top of my class but the stress of the 12-hour days of honours physics, chemistry and maths, and other personal problems, meant that my grades began to slip. I decided to leave in December 2007.
Now
I’M STUDYING BUSINESS and humanities at Sligo Institute of Technology aiming to do motivational and inspirational speaking. I also do stand-up comedy and I’ve gigged in Ireland and the UK. I do a set on my cancer experience: “Cancer wasn’t all that bad! As a result of my chemotherapy I saved a fortune on my electricity bills due to the fact that I now glow in the dark . . .” paudybyrne-story.blogspot.com
