I’ve treated cancer like a game ..I just won’t accept defeat
FARNEY LEGEND HUGHES ON GREATEST BATTLE OF HIS LIFE
EUGENE ‘NUDIE’ HUGHES was recently selected as Monaghan’s greatest ever footballer.
A three-time All Star, Hughes was at the heart of innumerable big games for the Farney county and for his club, Castelblaney Faughs, from the late 1970s to the early-1990s.
Now 62, Hughes (left) has been fighting for his life for the last 18 months. He was diagnosed with
liver and colon cancer in December 2018.
“I’ve treated it like a game of football,” Hughes told Mirrorsport. “My friends in the GAA have played a big part in this.
“After it hit me, I said to (former Meath great) Gerry Mcentee it was like playing against the wind in a game.
“The wind wasn’t always going to go the one way – and I was going to get a chance to play with it, too.
“It’s how you handle it. You can whinge and cry, but that was never my situation.
“When you’re beat, you’re beat – but that only happens when you accept it. And I wouldn’t be one for accepting anything like that.”
Hughes attended the All Stars ceremony in Croke Park at the start of November in that year, to celebrate as three Monaghan players picked up awards.
While attending a function for referees the following evening, he felt unwell.
He saw a doctor on call that night and was sent to hospital after disclosing he had suffered gall bladder problems in the mid-1980s.
The stomach pain he suffered a fortnight earlier, the discomfort that went away after taking a couple of Rennie, came to mind.
As did the slight concern he had felt that, while doing light exercises, he couldn’t bend down properly or do sit ups.
His appetite had been fine, though, so he still didn’t think anything was seriously wrong until the radiologist spent 20 of the 25 minutes of the examination concentrating on his left side during the ultrasound.
“I’d been a butcher in a
previous job... I guessed something wasn’t right,” he joked.
That evening he was diagnosed with cancer.
“I knew myself it was serious, but it was a shock to the system to be told,” Hughes admitted. “It took me a couple of days to get my head around it.” He began to read up about the cancer and the treatment, which he then started on December 3.
“It was tough, but I was very lucky that I didn’t have a reaction to the first round of treatment,” he explained.
“I did for the second batch, but my energy levels were very good. I was very focused and kept doing all the things they asked.
“You’re trying to stay safe and doing the opposite to what you’d normally do. Thankfully I applied myself and everything took off from there.
“The first six months were easy because it was life or death. Then you’re into a situation, like the Covid, where you get a bit relaxed and the results mightn’t be as good.”
Part of the process was to get a second opinion from Mcentee, a surgeon in the Mater Hospital.
“I said, ‘You’ll have to take some responsibility for this, Gerry’, recalled Hughes. “He looked at me.
“I said, ‘Remember the ‘84 Centenary Cup final, some of the tackles I got...’.
“Gerry looked at me for a minute before a smile came to his face. I said to him, ‘I won’t be able to line out for the second half now’. But he replied, ‘Oh, you will be, but you’ll not be selling me dummies!’.
“They know that I’d be very positive and it is all about your attitude to it, and the people you surround yourself with. I’m in good shape.”
Thankfully unaffected by Covid-19 apart from isolating, Hughes begins a new treatment next week.
He spends his time on Dublin’s northside when he’s attending the Mater for morning sessions from 7.30 to 1pm. When he’s not, he’s at home in Castleblaney, where he is up early every morning to walk or play nine holes of the local Concra Wood golf course.
“Thankfully now I have more good days than bad,” Nudie added. “Every day is a new challenge.”