Prognosis may have changed but cancer heroes remain the same

If you were diagnosed with cancer, you were goosed. Gone. Ready to pop your clogs. Not anymore, writes Terry Prone

THE best thing about the Irish Cancer Society is that they didn’t do a KFC. You know the way when the obesity issue first began to gain prominence, the word “fried” became evil? Back then, the Kentucky Fried Chicken people decided to go for initials. They took out the reference to Kentucky, their state of origin, presumably to remove all association with the deep-fried culinary tradition of the American Deep South. They took out the dirty F word. They even took out the bird word, which seemed a bit OTT, unless you are given to conspiracy theories, in which case you assume that sooner or later, you’ll buy a bucket of fried something and that something may be — well, let’s not go there.

KFC rebranded and not a murmur came from Kentuckians, fried food aficionados or the chicken advocacy people. They rebranded so seamlessly that a friend of mine was astonished, recently, to find out that chicken was actually involved in the KFC offering. (Admittedly, this friend is one of those awful people who talks about “eating clean” so essentially, if it’s not raw and unpeeled, she doesn’t know about it.) The Irish Cancer Society never followed this example, despite the fact that their title has a word in it that knocks “fried” to the bottom of the bucket as a fear maker. Cancer is a heart-stopper word. Or was, when the Irish Cancer Society started up. Back then, if you were diagnosed with cancer, you were goosed. Gone. Ready to pop your clogs. And possibly committed to concealing what was wrong with you, because cancer had a weirdly pejorative connotation.

In the intervening years, two things have happened. The first is that the instant death sentence has been lifted, for the most part. Cancer treatments have improved. In some parts of the world, particularly places like Florida, a US state which is awash in sunshine and contains more old people than any other state of the Union, cancer is now regarded as a chronic, rather than lethal disease. You meet people in Florida with steri-strips forming a kiss mark on their faces, and you immediately go “Skin cancer. Grand.” It’s that routine.

The second thing that happened is Dr Google. Now, Dr Google has his points. Or her points, although I’m convinced he’s mainly a fella. But when it comes to cancer, Dr Google is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, he familiarises us with visible cancers like melanoma so that amateur or self-diagnosis is easy.

On the other hand, Dr Google has a tendency to amplify ambient stupidity. Chairing a conference of oncologists in Amsterdam last year, I found that just to mention Dr Google caused them emotional meltdown. If they could ban him, they would. One of them said, through gritted teeth, that one patient of hers, diagnosed with a particularly fast-travelling cancer, announced that she was postponing treatment for a few weeks because Dr Google told her a blueberry cleanse might do the trick.

A variant on this has just surfaced nearer home, where Dr Conleth Murphy, consultant oncologist at the Bon Secours Hospital in Cork, has just done his own bit of teeth-gritting over herbal remedies. Sure what harm, I hear you say, in taking something as natural as an herbal remedy, as long as you also take whatever chemo is prescribed for you? Dr Murphy hardly knows where to start rebutting that one, although he heads for the liver, pointing out that herbal remedies get eliminated from the body in the same way as conventional medicines. They are eliminated through the liver, and if your liver is already trying to cope with Interferon or whatever the oncologist has prescribed for you, you don’t want it distracted by having to cope with herbals at the same time. But that’s only the start of it. There’s also the possibility that your “natural” remedies and the conventional ones may not get along together that well.

“We know that many of these herbs and drugs interact with each other and can potentially interfere with cancer treatment so the most important thing is that doctors and nurses are made aware if a patient is taking them,” says Dr Murphy.

Bottom line, if you are diagnosed with cancer, ignore Dr Google, for starters. Then tell your medical team about anything else you’re taking, including hormones. Then go on the Irish Cancer Society’s website if you want to get a detailed steer and some solid help when it comes to managing and surviving the disease.

The Irish Cancer Society provides the most amazing range of services, including night-nursing at home for cancer patients who are not going to survive, and those services are for the most part paid for through fundraising.

Key to that fundraising is Daffodil Day. Here is where I get to declare an UN-vested interest. The company I then owned and ran did the PR for the very first Daffodil Day, back in 1988. Right now, however, me and the Irish Cancer Society have no commercial relationship, so I can talk freely about what has become a phenomenal example of great fundraising.

It started with a Dublin businessman named Charles Cully, who spotted the idea in Canada. The basic notion was that on a specially designated day daffodils are sold to allow the development of a cadre of specially-trained nurses to give specialised care to cancer patients. At the beginning, real daffodils were sold, which presented logistical problems akin to landing six elephants on the moon, although the printing of official wrapping paper ensured that anybody who bought a daffodil knew where their money was going. As time went on, however, it became clear that brooches of fabric daffs made more sense, except for the initial photographs. Those initial photographs, looked at down the years, have a wonderful sameness to them: lots and lots of bunches of bright yellow flowers symbolising spring and with it the return of hope. Add children and currently famous people and the visual carries the inevitability of magic.

One of the famous people back then was Charlie Haughey, leader of Fianna Fáil, taoiseach, and extremely popular at the time. Others included Pat Kenny and Anne Doyle. Everybody gave their time and their face for free. I can’t remember that anybody suffering from cancer got much of a look-in, and that’s one of the great contrasts with this year, when the campaign features people like Stephanie Loughran and Bobby Kerr, hammering home the message that, while cancer may have tried to kill both, the small donations of millions of people on Daffodil Day helped prevent that happening.

The tone of Daffodil Day has changed. The services it funds have expanded, diversified and changed. The faces of the unpaid volunteers who deliver boxes of daffodil brooches and organise events have changed over time. But they went out, this year, as they have gone out for the last 28 years. Because of controversies involving charities, they knew they might get the odd barbed comment, but they also knew that the services their fundraising supports matter to every family in the country. They are heroes. Heroes helping heroes.