Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
RADIO PRESENTER AND former DailyEdge.ie writer Louise McSharry has been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, she revealed today.
The 31 year old talked about her recent diagnosis with Ryan Tubridy on his 2fm show this morning.
“I knew something wasn’t right,” she said of the past few months, during which she was in and out of hospital for tests.
“I had my appendix out in December and I had a little abscess after that. I felt normal for a couple of months. But then I felt strange, I lost my appetite, I stopped getting my period and in bed at night, I’d get really gross, intense sweating.”
After several weeks of tests with appendix specialists, Louise began to suffer with pains in her side that “felt like a very bad stitch”.
She was admitted to hospital two-and-a-half weeks ago where doctors discovered growths on her spleen. They also performed a biopsy on lymph nodes found on her arm.
“The test results were available last Wednesday. I wanted to go on my own to the appointment but [fiancé] Gordon’s mam told him to come.
“You never ask any questions,” he told her when he insisted on the plan.
“The consultant told me pretty straight,” she revealed to Tubridy. “He said, ‘You know we’ve been doing all these tests. We’ve been trying to rule out malignancy and lymphoma. Unfortunately that’s what it is’.
I was physically moved back. There were tears in my eyes. I knew it was cancer but he talked a bit more before he used the word.
Her appointment with the Oncology department was the next day and Louise now faces into six months of chemotherapy.
But, at the appointment, she was still thinking about how to tell people – and when she could change up her look.
Bizarrely, she says, the second thought in her mind (after: ‘How do I tell people?’) was:
I’m obviously going to dye my hair pink now.
She added that she had been keeping her hair bleach-free to try and improve its condition. ”They were the thoughts in my head.”
She also revealed to her fellow presenter that she started joking about the situation automatically.
“Gordon was not impressed… He was not ready for jokes. But we’re well into the black humour now.”
Soon, however, she turned to the task at hand. She explains that the type of cancer she has is treatable and curable.
“I’m very lucky, Hodgkin’s lymphoma is a curable cancer. Most people with cases like me are cured. The vast majority… 80% aim for a cure in the first round of treatment. They are brilliant odds.
Currently, this is just how I feel: I’m going to go do six months of chemo. It’s going to be rough but I’ll be cured and get on with my normal life.
She still plans on still getting married almost exactly one year from now.
“I genuinely have no doubt that I’m going to be fine.”
Louise will be off air for the coming months. Friends and listeners sent well wishes to her over Twitter while listening to the interview this morning.
All of us at TheJournal.ie, DailyEdge.ie and TheScore.ie would like to add our own best wishes. We’re going to do that, and remind her that she’s awesome, in the form of a song that we know she’ll enjoy.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
9 years to see a Urologist in Waterford.
@paul kelly: That’s taking the pi$$
@paul kelly: leo wouldn’t believe that now if he heard it, coming especially from waterford. He said as much a few months ago.
Cataract surgery waiting lists is ridiculous, maybe the government need to contact sight savers all over Africa doing this simple quick operation on how best to do it.
Or maybe we could just continue the circle of health getting totally out of control (we are there now) and watch on as the government offer up the head of the minister who took the poisoned chalice fully knowing that he/she will be looked after following the inevitable outcome and go on to do very well for themselves. Maybe even finding themselves giving out on behalf of the public about the new minister who received the chalice in full knowledge that they will be looked after. The cycle needs to be smashed
@Tommy C: we have one of the best funded health services in the world. Something very wrong with the HSE.
@Tommy C: more like circle of death by the time you are called for a operation.
@TRUMPS#BLIMP: Metrics used by HSE are daft.
Trolleys as a metric of waiting lists is wrong as it measures inputs.
You must measure the outputs of each and every HSE process …
Procedures per day per unit staff (10 or 100 or x staff .. whatever the international benchmark is …)
8 per day in UK NHS
6 per day in Irish private hospitals
4 per day in Irish public system
A few process specialists could solve this by reduction of number of handoffs, reduce in inter handoff dead times, …. there are experts who know how to fix the dreadful Irish health care system waiting lists …
Procedures per day as a key metric is a must to reduce waiting lists. HSE have enough money … 11% of GDP v 9% for other countries.
Go private, that’s the FG way.
@Dave Doyle: If you pay you get the service. Nothing to do with politics. He HSE does its best.
Unfortunate sentence that cataract patients waiting for surgery *see* waiting lists blah blah…. if the waiting list are so long they’ll see bugger all by the time they get a slot. Where is the editor?
That’s because we don’t have enough staff or funding. Every section of medical staff is going abroad for better money and better working conditions. Our hospitals are like cesspits. The HSE needs to be torn down, all the dead weight disposed of and a new, non corrupt organisation put together. There’s still far too much nepotism and corruption in the HSE, this means someone’s mate is getting the job over the right person, the most qualified and experienced person.
“That’s the standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don’t work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital.”
Noam Chomsky,
Should of seen this coming
Patients on waiting lists don’t cost any money. It’s that simple.
This is dangerous and upsetting. Being on a waiting list with the HSE is like awaiting a prison sentence.
have your say