'I've got more out of volunteering than I've given. I've made lifelong friends'

Irish Cancer Society volunteer Brenda Convoy says losing her sister to cancer and battling the disease herself inspired her to help others on their cancer journeys

Brenda Convoy has for 20 years volunteered in the Irish Cancer Society’s shop just eight minutes down the road from her home. Photo: Moya Nolan

Brenda Convoy and her younger sister, Maura, were known as the chemo sisters.

“Maura had breast cancer, it was more aggressive than mine,” says mother-of-five Convoy who was diagnosed with double breast cancer in 2003. “Maura was my baby sister. I was extremely close to her,” says the 74-year-old who has six “gorgeous” grandchildren. 

“Her cancer kept recurring — she battled it for eight, nine years. We were always waiting for the next bomb to fall but she never complained, I had great respect for her.

“After Maura got it I was on red alert to check. Almost three years before she passed, I was diagnosed. I had chemo, radiotherapy, hormone treatment. Thank God I’m 20 years clear now and it’s all due to the fabulous oncologist and medical interventions.”

Convoy says humour got her through. “If you get a shock it’s either sink or swim — and I keep swimming. Maura and I kept each other going. We called ourselves the chemo sisters. We’d be by-the-way giving each other our chemo weeks — ‘hang on, that week doesn’t look good for me’. We were only messing.

“The postman would be coming and I’d forget to put my wig on and I’d be saying ‘between no boobs and no hair, your man nearly fell out the door’. You keep going.”

Maura’s death was the catalyst for Rathmines-based Convoy to become an Irish Cancer Society volunteer — for 20 years she has volunteered in the charity’s shop just eight minutes down the road from her home. 

“I’d spend every Saturday with Maura, she lived in Naas, and when she passed away I was a year and a half over my treatment. I asked myself ‘what are you going to do to help people who are going through what we did?’”

Convoy herself had received practical support from Irish Cancer Society’s Reach to Recovery around getting prosthesis after her double mastectomy — “they came to see me in hospital, it was the beginning of my interest in the charity” — and she also availed of the nurse-line a couple of times. 

For me, the Irish Cancer Society covered the gap where patients need support outside the medical sphere.

Convoy recalls “literally being there the day the charity’s shop opened in Rathmines”. Describing how she loves the shop, she says: “The craic is mighty. I terrorise the customers — I even sing to some of them! 

"I know the customers by their first names and the other volunteers are absolute dotes. I’ve made lifelong friends.” Adding that volunteering is “a great education in personal communication”, she hugely appreciates those who donate. 

“A man came in one day with loads of boxes. I thought ‘Mother of God, never-ending boxes’. His mother had died. One lady who’s been battling cancer for five years comes in to let me know she’s still here — that’s nice, you know she’s being cared for.

“Another girl — she’s hilarious — says ‘I’ve nearly died three times and I’m still here’. It’s that kind of chatter we have,” says Convoy who also volunteers at the Irish Cancer Society’s Daffodil Centre at St James’s Hospital.

“I talk to patients. I was trained to do it. Mostly they want reassurance and to know there’s hope. I’m not supposed to tell my story so I just say ‘I’ve been there, worn the t-shirt and it’s been 20 years since’ — and that’s all they need. You see the relief: ‘oh cripes! There’s hope. I’ve had a bump in the road but I’ll get there’.”

A librarian before she had to give up her job when she married, she loves opera. “I love Tosca,” she says, recalling her childhood in Kerry and how her mother used to have Mario Lanza “going full blast” in the kitchen while she was baking.

“Caruso, Joan Sutherland, Joseph Locke — I have all those CDs from when Mammy passed away. She died of cancer — her two sisters had it too. So cancer is sneaking around there in the genetic pool.”

Convoy does two four-hour shifts a week in the ICS shop. She said:

I’ve got more out of volunteering than I’ve given. And I like to give back. 

"People helped me when I had cancer. As I said to one patient: ‘every step you take, the Irish Cancer Society will take a step behind you until you’re finished your journey with it’.”

Last year, the Irish Cancer Society’s transport service provided 29,874 free lifts to bring patients to and from their treatment nationwide. 

Meanwhile, close to 27,000 supportive and comforting conversations took place with people affected by cancer through the charity’s support line and Daffodil Centres. Also, 179 families availed of the ICS Children’s Fund to help with the cost of a childhood cancer diagnosis.

Irish Cancer Society CEO Nikki Gallagher says volunteers are at the very heart of the charity. “Our national network of volunteers are extremely generous with their time, expertise, kindness and compassion. In every town and village across Ireland, they help us raise vital funds and deliver vital services.

“From our Peer Support programme, where people who have had their own cancer experience dedicate their time to others going through diagnosis and treatment, to our volunteer drivers who give lifts to patients to and from their treatment — their support makes a huge difference to people currently experiencing cancer and we are very grateful.”

• cancer.ie 
• Freephone Support Line: 1800 200 700.