I would take cancer over depression any day, says Vicky
Brave campaigner warns about mental health challenges as she vows to f ight on for her daughter’s generation and opens up about her feelings on religion
VICKY PHELAN says she would take cancer over depression any day, having seen the worst of both during her lifetime.
As a student she was in a horrific car crash that claimed the lives of her French boyfriend Christophe and her friend Lisa and left another friend Katie paralysed, as well as herself seriously scarred.
Years later she saw her young daughter suffer serious burns to her body during a household accident. And then she got her own devastating, avoidable cervical cancer news.
Ms Phelan says she has spent long periods in despair.
But she says her terminal diagnosis has given her a new perspective on life.
‘When you’re given a terminal diagnosis, and you’ll often see it, it gives you an appreciation of life,’ she tells Joe Duffy candidly on The Meaning Of Life, which airs tonight on RTÉ One.
‘And kind of everything else just falls away. You know, nothing else is important. I got the worst news you could possibly get.’
The Limerick mother of two blew the lid off the cervical cancer screening scandal when she refused to be silenced by a gagging order after settling her case against a US lab for €2.5m.
Her case led to the revelation that the State’s CervicalCheck programme had missed the opportunity to catch cancer early for scores of Irish women. But even when the HSE realised the errors, a decision was made not to tell the women that their cancers could have been caught earlier.
Women who were given incorrect results, including Emma Nic Mhathúna and Ruth Morrissey, have since died of the disease, and Ms Phelan says she will not give up her battle to raise awareness of the disease and to ensure Ireland has a screening service fit for her daughter.
Speaking about her outlook, she says: ‘All I want now is time, so I don’t care what I look like any more. I’m two stone heavier than I ever was. I couldn’t give a s***.
‘My kids don’t care what weight I am, I’m here with them. And I’m well enough to do things with them. And that’s what matters.’
During the interview at the University of Limerick, where she received an honorary degree for her campaigning work, Ms Phelan went into painful detail about the effect of the cancer and her treatment, which she describes as ‘barbaric’, leaving women, among other things, incontinent, unable to have children and unable to have sex.
But, she insists: ‘Still I would choose cancer over depression any day.’
Ms Phelan’s marriage has broken up as a result of her ordeal, but she and her husband Jim still live in the family home.
The Meaning Of Life was presented by Gay Byrne for 13 seasons, exploring the beliefs of well-known people. This is Duffy’s first season at the helm, and other guests include Blindboy Boatclub of the Rubberbandits, and Mary Lou McDonald.
Ms Phelan reveals that while her tumours are large, they have shrunk slightly thanks to the experimental drug she fought for access to. However, she knows it will eventually stop working. But you know,’ she says, ‘I have backup.’ She also recounts how after her car crash, full of morphine, her father’s late mother appeared to her in a dream, telling her ‘it wasn’t my time’.
‘One of the things I kind of railed against with the Church was there’s not a huge level of acceptance for others,’ she says.
‘Just because somebody is different doesn’t mean that it’s wrong or it’s not acceptable. And I think that’s one thing that comes with religion is a huge amount of guilt. And I don’t have any of that, there’s a great freedom, I think, in that and that’s one thing I would say to my kids is accept people for who they are.’
She added that her grandmother appearing to her did not change her views on religion.
However, she says: ‘I think, on God, I’ve always believed that when you die, people you love are
‘It gives you an appreciation of life’
‘I still would talk to my grandmother’
still with you in some way. People say, you know, like stories of people seeing robins, I think that’s too much of a coincidence. And that they have to be true.
‘And it’s something that you have to hold on to, I think for the people left behind as well. It’s a nice thing. So I’ve always believed I mean, I still would talk to Christophe and my grandmother. But I don’t talk to God. No, I lost that. I really lost my faith.’
When Duffy asks her if nonetheless she believes in an afterlife, she says: ‘I think particularly in my situation where I know there’s going to be an end coming, you have to believe there’s something at the end of it.’
But Ms Phelan hopes to be around for a few more years yet, and to spend as much time as possible with her son Darragh, nine, and daughter Amelia, 15.
‘If I got another three years, I’d be delighted. If I got five years I’d be thrilled, you know, got to get to 50.’
■ The Meaning Of Life is on RTÉ One at 10.30 tonight