Why they feared me — an ordinary person with cancer

I WRITE in the wake of the uncertainty surrounding the exclusion of oncologist John Crown from the Late Late Show panel.

I had the honour of being a Late Late show guest more than a year ago.

My reason for being there was in part to highlight my book, If It Were Just Cancer, but also as a founder member of the lobby group Patients Together.

I am an ordinary person, a cancer patient who suffered the indignity of A&E, a filthy ward, the fear and terror of not getting a bed and, as a consequence, denied the right to avail of my urgently required chemotherapy.

From the day I was given the all-clear I vowed that on behalf of all the others not as blessed as me, I would highlight our suffering. Nothing more, nothing less. I wanted people to know what it meant to be seriously ill in modern

Ireland.

I am not an academic. I am not a mover-and-shaker. I grew up in a close, loving family of eight in Finglas, Dublin, in what was known as a ‘corpo purchase house’.

I left school at 15 and had a son at 19. I worked in a tyre outlet and as a company rep and eventually started my own business in 1994.

My new-found position under the spotlight on the Late Late Show, in the papers and on the radio was terrifying and I lost many hours sleep with the worry of letting everybody down.

I never envisaged this would be where my cancer would take me. My mother believes I survived at God’s will to do this work. I am inclined to believe I am driven by those gone before me, goading me to stand up and be heard.

Where am I going with all this? The night I appeared on the Late Late was one of the most privileged in my life. My family, friends and supporters were dotted around the country watching and my heart was bursting with pride and fear. I wanted to say something that would touch people — to make them understand how we as patients are being failed. I was sick with nerves, but I knew the girls on the ward were with me in spirit.

I made it through the show, but fell into my son’s arms crying and shaking when it finished. It was all too much. The relief that it was over was immense. I remember one of the researchers coming to me and hugging me: “Well done, Janette, you were brilliant and you have caused such a fuss.”

I was worried. What had I done? The researcher went on to explain that certain people had been screaming down the phones wanting to know who made the decision to put me on the show and why were they not told I would be on?

The researcher took much delight in their agitation because they apparently find it so hard to get any comments, returned calls, etc, from these people, and now they were hopping mad, phoning in more and more as I was speaking.

What in Gods’ name could make these people so irate? Little old me rattling on about the indignity of our health service? What was I saying that incited such fear and upset?

I have found the answer: I was telling the truth. I was an ordinary person telling how it is. I had nothing to gain and nothing to lose. Until that moment I had never realised how powerful the ordinary person who is willing to stand up and be heard can be. I find it so sad that we have a section of our community driven with desire to silence the truth.

Following the show and my naive decision to gate-crash a HSE press gathering, I received texts from a prominent health correspondent saying he had received calls questioning who I was? Who was funding Patients Together? Who was yanking my chain? How many members do we have, etc?

I will save these people any further time-wasting and stress worrying about me. I am a nobody, a taxpayer, an Irish citizen, an honest and loyal person who whispered a promise to the dead that I would be their voice until our overcrowded, under-funded, diseased health service learns to treat us with dignity and care. Really you have nothing to be afraid of.

Janette Byrne

Patients Together

82 Finglas Park

Dublin 11