When Tony Killeen, Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, was diagnosed with cancer, he just kept on going, writes LORNA SIGGINS.
I DIDN’T have the classic symptoms, but should have had checks because of family history. My mother was diagnosed with bowel cancer in her 60s and it killed her.
My weight had been up to over 18 stone and I thought I should lose a bit. So, over a period of a little over a year, prior to my appointment as Minister of State for Agriculture and Fisheries, I lost four stone. It seemed a lot in a relatively short period, and at first I thought it was due to my great efforts.
However, when my wife had me at home last summer, she got me to go to Fergus Glynn, a GP in Corofin. He sent me for a colonoscopy, which took place about six weeks later in the Galway Clinic. I knew that day what my diagnosis was and had surgery within a month.
I wouldn’t have been good at talking about it and continued working, as normal. It seemed feasible. I told the Taoiseach and explained that if he had any reservations about me being able to continue with the job, I’d stand aside without hesitation. He was very supportive and had no issues. I was back in the Dáil a fortnight after surgery.
From October to early December last year, I wore a colostomy bag. I managed it fairly well but it would be quite difficult in meetings as you have no control over the unusual sounds it can make. The doctors wanted me to leave the reversal procedure until after I had had chemotherapy, but I wasn’t so keen on that.
I had the procedure in December, travelled to the pre-Christmas fisheries council in Brussels, which generally goes on right through the night and sets quotas and total allowable catches for the year, and began chemotherapy in the Galway Clinic on December 28th. The plan was to have treatment every second week for six months so I finished in early June.
I began to see a predictable pattern, in that I would work the Monday and Tuesday when I was having chemotherapy, and would then be sick – sometimes very sick – for three days that week. This would be followed by a pretty good week. I knew then that I was usually well enough for travel when required.
I’ve visited fishing ports right around the coastline from Castletownbere in west Cork, to Greencastle in Co Donegal as part of the brief during that time, and got to know people in those communities. It was fairly hard going at times, but knowing that I would be reasonably well in the second week helped.
“Towards the end of the programme, the sickness and unpredictable tiredness hit me a bit harder. That is even more the case now, and probably for the next few months, when I am likely to have the side effects in a pretty pronounced manner fairly frequently.
In this job, there can be a lot of night-time meetings and I found that difficult. Some people were very good at accommodating me. I was also forced to stop attending funerals – a big issue for a rural politician.
When the Taoiseach had his recent junior ministerial reshuffle, I was three-quarters of the way through chemotherapy. So, in spite of speculation among political commentators, I was re-appointed. I find this brief very satisfying and have a good relationship with the fishing industry and forestry people – even if we don’t always see eye to eye.
There were times when I overdid it. If someone came to me for advice, I’d say that they should stick to their routine as much as is practicable. But if you overdo it, it can be hugely debilitating in that it can take several days to recover.
At one stage last month, for instance, I slept 20 of 24 hours, two days in a row. I had chosen to go to Dublin to vote on the confidence motion in the Government tabled by Fine Gael – I wanted to be there but I paid for it.
There’s little doubt I would have avoided chemotherapy altogether if I had gone to the GP three to six months earlier. Conversely, had Lily – my wife – not pressed me to go when she did, I might have been too late.
When you are in a chemotherapy ward, you meet all sorts of people; it is a great social milieu. People can talk pretty openly. Every week there are people who fail their blood test and can’t have treatment that day and you’d be trying to cheer them up. One of the things you learn is that your own situation is never the worst.
We would give each other great support. We used to have long discussions about the most inappropriate things people had ever said – after their diagnosis, that is. People can get very flustered when they know you are ill with something like cancer. They don’t know what to say – and often say the wrong thing inadvertently. It’s good to talk and laugh about it!
Of course, my fellow patients never left me alone about being in politics – I could cope with that! I celebrated my 57th birthday in hospital, and told everyone I was 72. Would you believe that not one person questioned this – not one of the 21 or 22 people in the ward? That was a bit of a shock to think I look that much older than I am. I pretended to be offended when I eventually told them the truth.
My oncologist, Maccon Keane, was terrific, along with surgeon Liam Joyce and all the staff. I remember several of the oncology nurses thinking I was going to extremes in work and warning me that I would have to choose between my health and my job.
It is enormously important to stay active. I believe that cancer doesn’t have to be a ‘life sentence’ or a ‘death sentence’. There are side effects of the chemotherapy that made that difficult at times. There are short-term-memory effects – I would find it difficult to remember people’s names. Sometimes I couldn’t read complicated legal briefs. I just couldn’t absorb the information, but on other days I’d be absolutely fine.”
I even did a bit of canvassing during the local and European elections while I was coming to the end of the treatment programme. And it was the one area of the country where Fianna Fáil won three of the five seats!