In 2008 I went through the diagnosis & treatment for cancer and spent several weeks in St. Luke’s Hospital as an inpatient. I was discharged a few days before Christmas. I celebrated my 52nd birthday under the radiation machine. Thankfully the treatment was a success though I didn’t feel it for a while. The recovery for that type of cancer can be slow and not everyone responds the same way but after Christmas when I had to start attending doctors’ surgery again, I began to get panic (anxiety) attacks. That’s when I heard of Wicklow Cancer Support for the first time, so not knowing if there was anything they could do I went to have a talk with them and I was made to feel so welcome & immediately put at ease. I also got talking to one of the drivers who explained he had been through a similar cancer and was 10 years clear. That gave me more hope than I can explain. I was given a course of counselling and when my first few review appointments came up, I availed of lifts. But after a few sessions of counselling my panic attacks stopped & I was driving myself around again. At that time the WCS was only in its infancy and a lot of treatments were more experimental to see what people wanted and needed so I was lucky to be given several different sessions, reflexology being my favourite, then there were 6 people chosen to do a self-awareness course. It was during this course that I started to feel I was truly getting better than I was asked what kind of group would I like to see starting and I suggested an Art Group so that was set up in 2010 and it quickly became apparent to me that the actual art was secondary although very relaxing and a lot of fun but the real gift of the group set up is meeting people who share the same or similar illness and you can talk or stay silent but if you’re feeling a little under pressure just by being there can help you to feel so not alone. The art group today has grown and is even more important and definitely more productive. Around 2018 I got prostate cancer and again I was helped through that by the WCS. This time I didn’t need to stay in, but I went up every day for radiation and that’s when I got to meet a few of the drivers and realized how important the volunteer drivers are. They made going for treatment so much more bearable. The WCS is such an important lifeline for me. I could go on for ages but if I was to write every detail of my experience then I’d be writing a book. I have left out a lot of details, but the main thing is that I believe the WCS to be the most important organisation to ever come to Wicklow long may it last. It is run by volunteers that just have to be angels.
I was asked many years ago to sum up how I felt about WCS. My reply then was that the doctors and nurses gave me another chance at life, but WCS gave me the will to live. That holds true today.