2FM DJ LOUISE McSharry has been through a gruelling bout of cancer and come out the other side.
She’s preparing to revisit her journey though, as a documentary about her diagnosis and subsequent treatment is due to air tomorrow night on RTÉ Two.
The film will see her struggling with the day-to-day illness of Hodkin’s lymphoma. It will see her dealing with chemotherapy, with hair loss, with body issues, with the ‘hellish experience’ of wedding dress shopping when she was feeling at her lowest ebb, and with all the laughter and the tears that came in between.
This morning on RTÉ Radio One Ryan Tubridy, in conversation with Louise, described the documentary as ”vivid, poignant, emotional, honest, public”. McSharry said that a “strong belief in shared experience” led her to go public about her private life, because she felt it might help others going through similar struggles; she saw an opportunity to “embrace an openness”.
One of those struggles – one that nobody verbalises - is the constipation, which she called “one of the worst things” about the side effects of chemotherapy. And in the spirit of embracing that openness, she spoke to Tubs about it this morning:
I had major issues with constipation and it’s something nobody talks about. And when you’re experiencing it you have nobody to talk to about it.
McSharry said that she and friend who was also undergoing chemotherapy at the time “used to Whatsapp each other about our movements”. She also said she eventually had to tell her (now) husband Gordon about what she was going through.
When the chemotherapy ended, so too did the bathroom issues. However a more longstanding effect of the chemicals was something that the presenter and writer found more difficult to speak publicly about:
I would prefer not to be talking about the fact that my fertility has been decimated by chemotherapy.
McSharry says that the news that she may not be able to have children was “more difficult than being diagnosed with cancer”.
On the fertility scale I should be between 30 and 40 and I’m 2.
McSharry promises that the documentary – entitled ‘F**k Cancer’ – is “not all tears, there are laughs in there too”.
She accepts that most people probably know her as “that girl from 2FM who had cancer” but promises it’s a title she won’t be hanging onto for long.
Hopefully I can shake it off in the next year or so.
F**k Cancer airs on Thursday 17 September on RTÉ Two at 9.30pm
By Emer McLysaght. Originally published on DailyEdge.ie.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say