A DERRY woman has shared the pain of learning her father has terminal kidney cancer, 12 years after her mother died from the same disease.
Carla Hagan lost her mother Lillian O’Donnell to kidney cancer in 2005, around seven months after she was first diagnosed with the disease.
Her mum, who was just 52 when she died, had undergone surgery shortly after her diagnosis but unfortunately the disease had already spread.
“With kidney cancer by the time patients get symptoms it is already quite advanced,” explained Carla, who is a teacher at St Joseph’s Boys School.
“And unfortunately it doesn’t respond well to chemotherapy or radio therapy.
“Her cancer was very short lived- six months after her surgery she was re-diagnosed and she passed away three weeks later.”
Carla and her four siblings were shocked to discover last June 1 that their father Alex O’Donnell was suffering from the same incurable disease.
“He was given the diagnosis that he had kidney cancer and it was already widespread,” she recalled.
“As it was 13 years on from my mother’s diagnosis there were more surgical options, but there was no curative treatment.”
With the memory of what happened to their mother still fresh in their minds the family were terrified about what lay ahead.
“It was just like being back in that time,” said Carla.
“But this time we had the knowledge of what lay ahead.
“It was very difficult because we knew how quickly my mother had passed away.”
Carla said it was very difficult time for her father, both physically and mentally.
Luckily, pharmaceutical advances mean treatments are now available to curb the spread of the disease.
“There are drugs now that are used to stall the cancer and stop it continuing to grow,” Carla explained.
“He was 66 then and he is 67 now, so he has lived to see another birthday.
“In the space of 13 years there are options now that you wouldn’t have had then.
“And because the treatment is in its infancy no one knows how long it can prolong people’s lives for.
“But we have been talking to people who have been taking it for three years and five years.
“So far he has responded really well and he is in a much more positive frame of mind.”
Carla and her siblings John O’Donnell, Anna McLaughlin, Melanie Toland and Catherine McElhinney have now formed a team for this year’s huge Relay for Life Cancer Research fundraiser called ‘Alex and Lil’s Gang’.
The team is headed up by Carla’s 14-year-old daughter Emily, who was just one when her granny Lillian passed away.
They also entered a team last year, but Alex was too sick to attend because he just received his diagnosis.
“He was too unwell to part last year but he was extremely proud of what I was doing and what we as a committee were doing,” said Carla, who is one of the event’s chief organisers.
“He didn’t get to see or experience it, so it’s lovely that this year he can because we never thought we would see this day.
“My mother would have loved this opportunity, but unfortunately she never got it.”
“She was only 52 when she died. We were all grown up. Her youngest child would have been 21 and the eldest was 31 so she and my father were just getting into a nice way of living.”
“She was really enjoying the start of having grandchildren. At that time she has six grandchildren and now she would have 12.
“She did get to see four of her five children married though and she did get to experience some of our lives but to die at just 52. That just seems too short.”
The Relay for Life event was held in St Columb’s Park last June and raised over
£140,000 for Cancer Research, despite a target of just £60,000.
This was the highest amount ever achieved by a first-time Relay for Life event and the teams will be hoping to beat that target at the second event this summer.
Alex O’Donnell is pictured centre with his wife Lillian who is on the right holding her grandchild.
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