How Brian battled back from the brink of death...
were amazing. We had a roster system.’ When Brian woke up, he couldn’t talk and was paralysed. ‘He was in intensive care, being fed by a peg, and on a ventilator. He’d had a tracheotomy, and had 15 different tubes going into him.
‘He could move his lips. A dear friend, Fr Stephen Monaghan, who spent a lot of time with him when he was unconscious, can lip-read. One day Brian mouthed: “Am I dying?” We told him he was but he was getting better.’ Gradually his speech began to return and his movement improved.
‘There were such bad days — he got every bug going: MRSA, pseudomonas, pneumonia and a few others. It was awful.’
Against all the odds, Brian started to improve. But Val had no idea of the battles ahead.
‘It got very sticky,’ she says. ‘we’ve seen the best and the worst of the health service. If Brian had suffered a stroke, he would have been on a care path, but because HSE is so rare, there was no plan for Brian. When he started getting better, nobody knew what to do with him. The care he got in Vincent’s until they suggested getting rid of him, was amazing.
‘That’s when ageism in the health service kicked in. At one point, one of the consultants said Brian had reached his peak and was better off in a nursing home and they’d organise a Fair Deal scheme.
‘But I knew if we got him the right treatment, he would recover.
‘We got into so many fights. I was adamant — no matter what way Brian is I’d take him home, even if he’s in a coma.’
Researching rehab options with her family, Valerie learned the National Rehabilitation Centre only takes people under 65, ruling that out as an option. Donnybrook is geared towards stroke patients. Valerie and her children even explored rehab options in the UK and Germany before a family friend suggested Leopardstown Park, an old military hospital with 12 beds for rehab patients.
Brian was assessed and luckily two days later a bed became available. The bootcamp-style rehab saw him come on in leaps and bounds, along his road to — as Valerie describes it — ‘a miraculous recovery’. ‘When he came out of the coma, he was twisted and couldn’t stand straight but they got him walking straight in two weeks,’ she says.
‘My children are amazing, and were with him the whole time — doing his exercises with him, playing him music and when he got a bit better, taking him out for rounds of golf.’ Valerie, meanwhile, made the most of her time sitting in her armchair by Brian’s bedside, and finished her book, Ploughing People, chronicling the characters and traditions of the famous festival.
As Brian improved, the consultants who said Brian’s only options were long-term nursing care were forced to eat humble pie.
‘The consultant admitted afterwards they were wrong,’ Val says. ‘He said we all make mistakes. I think the biggest issue was ageism. I think families around the country are being bullied by consultants — we met several families who were being told: “put your parents in a nursing home”.
‘People have to stand up to doctors and consultants. Older people need to take control of the situation. I’d like to start a political party for older people. There are so many older people and there will be a lot more in a few years — we could control the Dáil if had the guts to go out and do it.’
Poignantly, Brian was discharged from hospital just in time to join Val, their family and a packed house, at Hodges Figgis last week for the launch of A Ploughing People, where he was overwhelmed by well-wishers. Back home, between his ongoing rehab sessions, Brian is finishing his own bookabout his father, an IRA man from the North, who was one of the first Garda recruits in 1923.
I ask Brian, if he had his time again, would he board that plane to Greece? ‘It was the right thing to do at the time,’ he says.
‘Those poor people needed help and support. When people are in need, something else takes over. I did what I did, what I believed was right. Would I do what’s right again? Absolutely, I would.’