The kindness that transformed my experience of life-threatening illness

I am today celebrating my 54th birthday that a year ago I thought I might never see

I am today celebrating my 54th birthday that a year ago I thought I might never see. Now I live with great hope of seeing many more birthdays, having sailed through a liver transplant operation at St Vincent's Hospital just three weeks ago.

Incredibly, I was discharged early last week, having spent just a fortnight in hospital.

Although I was suffering from a rare form of cancer known as carcinoid - from which there is a much higher survival rate than other cancers - there is still a significant mortality rate and always the possibility of recurrence.

The vast majority of patients with secondary carcinoid tumours in the liver can now be treated medically and can survive for many years, even decades, by taking the necessary medicines. As we will see anon, this could not be in my case. Moreover, 20 years ago or perhaps only 10 years ago, I would without doubt have had a fatal provenance.

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I feel compelled to tell this story because of the incredible experience I have undergone in the past 15 months and, to a lesser extent, over the past five years.

My father, like me, was born in October. Also like, me he was diagnosed with cancer in his late 40s. In his case, however, he died of the illness one month after his 54th birthday - the same age as I am now. In 1985, my sister Anne died of cancer at the age of 43 and in 1988, my brother Peter, aged 49, died of cancer on Christmas morning. That day, because I had the same colouring and pigmentation, it occurred to me that I could be next. And I was.

It was a balmy Sunday afternoon in October 1995, exactly five years ago. I had just enjoyed my Sunday lunch at home when pains like cholic began to develop in my stomach. As the afternoon passed, the pains persisted and developed. None of the ministrations of my wife Patsy, a nurse, had any beneficial effect.

Ultimately, we had to call a doctor, who immediately called an ambulance that took me to the accident and emergency unit at St James's Hospital. I was brought in on a trolley to the packed casualty department and was by now wriggling around in pain.

Suffice it to say that my turn was duly reached and I was quickly given injections in both thighs. The pain soon subsided and thereafter I vomited heavily. After this, I immediately felt as right as rain and was as buoyantly healthy as I had been right up to lunchtime that day.

Subsequent scans, X-rays and urine tests failed to reveal any problem. For seven months, I never looked back. Then, out of the blue, again on a Sunday afternoon, I underwent an exactly similar experience. Back I went to St James's casualty, this time having been driven by my wife.

This time I was grovelling in pain in the back row of the waiting room trying not to be noticed - but I was. A young man who was probably a drug addict did a running commentary on my problems in the full hearing of the other waiting and suffering patients. "It is probably an Ulster, Jim", he opined loudly.

Again, my turn was reached eventually, again there were injections, again relief and again no cause found. Immediately back to buoyant good health until a third episode about six months later.

This was January 6th, 1997. This time, there was emergency surgery and cancer tumours, known as carcinoids, were removed from my intestinal tract. The surgery was followed by monthly checks at first, then by quarterly checks and then six-monthly checks right up to April 1999. I was in great good health and nothing further was found.

However, at this stage I noticed I was getting occasional facial flushes, especially after drinking liquids. These were momentary flushes, which passed quickly, and I thought I had picked up some minor virus. An old back problem had come back to niggle at me and this got gradually worse during the summer as I prepared for the upcoming DIRT inquiry. For over 20 years, my family and I have holidayed in Schull in West Cork, and a bit of sailing was always part of the holiday.

Last year, again because of the approaching DIRT inquiry, I could only stay a few days, which however coincided with the annual regatta. I was invited to be part of the crew of a large yacht, which I accepted with alacrity. We won the big race, but I had worked hard pulling and dragging the main sail and the spinnaker. When the race was over, I could hardly walk up Schull pier. I had done some damage to my back

The next day, I drove back to Dublin with difficulty and had to borrow a pair of crutches to walk. Last-minute planning for the inquiry, now imminent, kept me fully occupied but after another day of intense back pain I decided to ring my GP. Scans were arranged.

The DIRT inquiry was due to start on Monday and, on the preceding Friday evening, the table in my office was surrounded by my sub-committee colleagues and our advisers. My secretary of 21 years, Noreen Flynn, slipped quietly into the office and whispered into my ear that Richard Stephens, my surgeon from St James's, was on the line and needed to talk to me.

I went to my desk in the other corner of the room, turned my back on the conference table where discussions were still continuing among my colleagues and took the doctor's call. He had good news and bad news.

I had a back problem and needed to consult an orthopaedic surgeon urgently. The back problem had nothing to do with my old carcinoid problem.

"Unfortunately Jim, it would appear your old problem is back and you appear to have tumours in your liver," he said.

I was fixed to my seat, looking blankly out of my office window. I made arrangements to see the doctor later that night and I rang my wife but no one was at home. I paused for a moment, said a little prayer and returned to the conference table where my colleagues were utterly oblivious to the devastating news I had just received.

We continued the conference and completed the final arrangements for the commencement of the DIRT inquiry the following Monday. The inquiry kept me fully occupied, but it was interspersed with several medical checks over the next several weeks.

The doctors facilitated the inquiry by seeing me at nights or arranging hospital tests for weekends. Every test contradicted the others. My liver was clear, it wasn't clear and it was clear. This continued right up to Christmas when St James's Hospital referred me to the liver unit at St Vincent's Hospital.

By now, the DIRT Report was published and some pressure was off. I was admitted to St Vincent's Hospital on February 7th and underwent extensive tests.

On the morning of February 8th, Oscar Traynor, the surgeon to whom I had been referred, came to see me and, with uncanny clarity, explained to me my true condition. He had discovered why there had been contradictory diagnoses.

Indeed I did have secondary carcinoid tumours in the liver - a quite rare phenomenon - but I had an even rarer sub-form of the condition which had distorted the early diagnosis. Moreover I had tumours on both sides of the liver and, in a nutshell, there was now only one option: a liver transplant.

I thought I was prepared for the worst news possible, but not this. He had more news for me. A transplant would not be possible unless I was in otherwise perfect health and this would require a long series of tests ending up with surgery.

Between February and May, successive in-patient visits to St Vincent's were necessary. Each time, we waited with baited breath for the result.

Brain, skeletal, pulmonary, heart tests, and so on, and then an open operation to explore my liver and intestinal tract. As one positive result followed another, our hopes were rising until finally we got the all-clear. It was all systems go for the liver transplant.

I had learnt a lot I didn't know. Ireland (with Spain) leads the world in the rate of organ donations. We have the shortest transplant waiting list in the world. We have a success rate at St Vincent's as high as the best in the world. And it is free, paid for by the State. It had only become available since 1993.

By this time there were wild rumours circulating about my condition, including definite reports of my imminent demise. The Late Late Show had asked me to go on after the DIRT inquiry, but because I was hospitalised on the date in question it was not possible. Now they approached me again. I decided to do it and to talk publicly about my medical condition for the first time.

Since that day in May, I have on every single day without exception received hundreds and hundreds of messages, now totalling several thousand, offering prayers and words of consolation.

I had already been overwhelmed by the fact of our high donor rate, which I believe is an insight into the real charity of the Irish. I have felt moved on a daily basis by the extraordinary kindness contained in so many diverse messages from every county in Ireland. This is not just because of sympathy shown to me, but what it further reveals about the true faith, hope and charity of our people. They have transformed my experience so that what I have been through is not so much illness but a pilgrimage which leaves me completely ill-equipped and perplexed as to how possibly to say thank you in any adequate way.

We as a State are now in a position to give more and more resources to the health service, but that is no longer the problem. When leaving St Vincent's, I asked my doctor was there some project I could help with. His one request was: get us more nurses urgently.

I am now praying for that too.

Jim Mitchell is a Fine Gael TD for Dublin Central