EILEEN’S CANCER IS BLOG PROVING AN INSPIRATION FOR MANY PEOPLE
THE last thing most women would want to do after being given a cancer diagnosis is to sit at a laptop and write.
But most women aren’t Termonfeckin woman Eileen Rushe.
The 33-year-old mum of one is still processing the shock of finding out her last cervical smear check showed she had the disease the treatment for which began on Christmas Eve.
Yet in the intervening weeks, while being hit with the full force of radiation, her thoughts have already turned to others, sharing her life-changing experience in a bittersweet blog called ‘Cervical Cancer is a Bitch’.
“I’ve had great feedback from the blog, and even all the female teachers in my son Seamus’ school have gone to get smear tests done after reading it, which is one of the points I want to make,’ says Eileen, who is originally from Bettystown, and has called Termonfeckin her home for 12 years. “While still processing the news, as soon as I heard on December 18th that the results were bad, I decided to go with treatment, and concentrate as being as positive as possible, and I find this cathartic in a way.”
Unlike many women in Ireland, Eileen tried to do everything the right way.
She got regular smear tests done – in her own words ‘maybe too many’, but 18 months ago, one showed up abnormal cells.
“That is not too unusual, and the idea of regular smears is to catch things like this early, as they are supposed to be slow growing cells,’ she explains. “But for whatever reason, and we might never know how or why, cancer seems to have been missed, and by the time we did find out, I needed urgent treatment.”
With so many harrowing tales of misdiagnosis and mishandling of cervical smears in Ireland at the moment, is Eileen not eager to find out if she too fell afoul of the bungling mess.
“You know, right now, it doesn’t change anything, and what happened, happened, and I just want to get cured,” she says bravely. “I am getting daily treatment in St Luke’s (in Rathgar) and it is gruelling and so painful! The way I can describe it, it’s like very bad labour, and any mum will know what I mean!”
Those memories of labour throw back 12 years, when Eileen became mum to Seamus, who was a surprise to say the least!
The discovery at college that she was expecting is one of the tales she tells in her blog.
“Thinking back I remember clear as day in that first week in college there was a poster on the back of the door saying 1/11 first years have an unplanned pregnancy.. I actually laughed out loud and was thinking, ‘what dope’”, she writes. “Well the following February I was expecting I know scarlet for myself … Well isn’t it great that happened now because the treatment to get rid of my cervical cancer also sends me into early menopause and makes me infertile. Now honestly this is no big deal for me as I am blessed with the beautiful son I have and to be honest the thought of nappies again makes me even more nauseous than I already am!”
She describes Seamus as her ‘whole life’ and is determined to stay strong for his sake.
“His dad John Byrne passed away in July 2017 at just 32 with complications from epilepsy, so he’s already had his fair share,” says Eileen, whose mum and dad Jim and Mary, live in Sandpit. “He stays with his grandparents during the week now while I am getting treatment all week, and I’m sure they are spoiling him rotten!”
Eileen says as soon as she can, she will get the HPV vaccine for her son.
“In my opinion, everyone should get it – I mean, there just isn’t any evidence to back up the negative press, and we have to use what we have available to us right now. It may be hard to trust, but we all have to run with it at the moment.”
And her advice to women is to still trust the cervical smear system and get checked regularly.
“I know it’s not a perfect system and maybe I will look into what happened some other time, but it is still frightful that some women aren’t up to date with smears,” says Eileen.
“I work in Irish Life in Dublin, who have been great allowing me a break to get well, but I am the third person on my team to get cancer, which is mad, so I encourage everyone to get checked as often as they need to.
“If I can stop one child, or woman going through what I’m going through, it will be worth it.”
You can follow Eileen’s journey on www. Cervicalcancerisabtch.home. blog
‘I know it’s not a perfect system and maybe I will look into what happened some other time, but it is still frightful that some women aren’t up to date with smears’ “If I can stop one person going through what I’m going through, it’ll be worth it”