People who cannot find time for recreation are obliged sooner or later to find time for illness. And so it was with busy councillor Alan Cheevers three years ago. When it was revealed that he had been diagnosed with bowel cancer, he feared the worst. In the same period of time, he had lost two uncles to the killer disease...and on the day he was told himself, he feared having to break the news to his father that the illness had once again visited the family.
For a councillor who looked so fit and healthy, the diagnosis was devastating. I recall messaging Alan at the time and giving him my tuppence worth on how to see through the dim prospect of surgery and chemotherapy. For a man who never drank or smoked and was lean and fit, the prospects seemed gloomy.
A man who was very open about his condition from day one, he helped the awareness campaign with photos taken along the way. Pallid, in Covid times, his trademark hair shaved, he was a shadow of himself.
However, when I met him last week for a brief chat and to facilitate his appeal to men to check for signs of illness and especially bowel cancer, it was a very different Alan Cheevers from the man who set out on that journey of illness some years ago. The hair is back, the pallid complexion of illness and hospitalisation has disappeared, and he has a new zest for life.
A wonderful team of cancer professionals worked on his journey back from the edge and before he starts the conversation, he tells me of his gratitude to and his sadness for the man who he credits with saving his life, Dr Babak Meshkat, consultant colorectal surgeon, at University Hospital Galway.
Mr Meshkat’s daughter Hannah, who was aged just six years, became the youngest person in Ireland to die on the roads this year when she passed away from her injuries after a serious road traffic accident in February. Alan’s eyes mist up when he tells me this sad story and credits Dr Meshkat and his fellow medics with making Galway a centre of excellence for cancer care.
“When I wake up in the morning now, I count myself very lucky. The situation is that last August, I got the all-clear from the cancer 100 per cent. I don’t have a scan until August again, a yearly thing. I was told previous to that that the cancer was contained and that I’m fine. It’s great news and I’m very lucky. When I got the diagnosis, I really didn’t know what I was dealing with.
Challenging
“In 2021, the doctors did the MRI and discovered that I was at early Stage 3 and it hadn’t spread anywhere, and was all contained in the one place. I wasn’t dealing with multiple areas, so I was fortunate in that regard. The symptoms were minimal enough. I didn’t have any cramps or pains. I just passed a little bit of dark blood in the stool. I put it down to haemorrhoids but the reality was that it was in my system. There was a 6cm tumour there.
“I went for the colonoscopy in September 2021, and the surgeon who did that, Dr Meshkat told me that he found a large tumour and that he was very positive it was cancer. Then I had scans which ascertained that it was contained and treatable. I had to do six chemos to start, fairly strong chemos to reduce the tumour. When that was done, I had a break of two or three months, and when that was done, they did keyhole surgery to reduce the tumour,” he recalls.
He found the chemo challenging, but a lot of people who went through the same thing with him in the Oncology Day Ward, found it a lot more difficult.
“I didn’t miss any Council meetings. I continued to go to work. What got me through was the Council work, because I was still kept busy and I didn’t diverge from that. Some days I did not feel like going to the meetings, but I went and that got me through it. It was a great distraction from the reality.”
At the beginning, he feared the worst.
“The first thing that came into my mind was my father and how I would tell him. My two uncles died of cancer in the space of a year and a half. They were my father’s only two brothers and were all very close. I rang him and told him, and within an hour, he was with me. I reassured him that it was treatable, and so I embarked on the road of treatment.
His eyes mist up again when he recalls those days at chemo.
“Two of the guys who were receiving chemo with me, have both passed away in the past while. I reflect on that and how lucky I was and I think of their families. I did the chemo and felt fine, so I had a break, but some of them never got a break at all and had constant chemo.”
Men need to take more responsibility
“There is a huge emphasis on women’s health and rightly so, but I don’t think there is enough emphasis on men’s health. I am 55 years of age. I never got any bloods done until I was 47. I wasn’t checking myself for prostate or having a colonoscopy. I was just basically feeling well and I left it at that.
“Men need to have more responsibility to get checked out when they go over 40. Men will talk about their heart and their brains, but they don’t share their thoughts on parts like their bowel and their prostate. Within two months of my diagnosis, my two brothers went and got checked and thankfully were all well. I am appealing to all men who read this to do likewise.
“I did an article with you for the Advertiser in 2021, and it was a very positive article, and not just about me getting ill. I go to the Huntsman most mornings for coffee and the sheer number of people who came up to me that day and said they had read that article and they got the wake-up call to go and get checked, was unreal. That gave me great encouragement.”
So how is he now?
“I’m feeling good. I love politics and that’s a great passion. I didn’t know if I would be living and if I would be, if I would be continuing in politics and now I’m in a situation where I’m looking forward to heading into another election, but thank God, I’ve been able to get on with it and I’m working away.”
He said that he looks at life in a different way now since his diagnosis.
“I say to myself what is meant to be is meant to be. I have worked hard at it for five years and given a good account of myself, and if I don’t get re-elected, I just move on with my life and do something else. I would love to get re-elected but it is not going to define me.
He said that the anxiety that he would have had in the past about life, money, relationships has dissipated and taken its place at the back of the queue.
“A diagnosis changes the way you look at life. A friend of mine in his forties who was diagnosed with leukaemia last year and has come out the other side, has said that he is going to do now what he had planned to do in twenty year’s time. He is moving to Spain and going to work from there and the reason he said he is doing this is because he got the wake-up call.
“It was a very spiritual awakening for him and so it has been for me. Not that I’d have been overly religious or anything, but spiritually, it has changed the way I look at life,” he said.
He said that in Galway, we are fortunate to have the cancer-tackling expertise that we have.
“We have probably one of the best oncology units in the country. One thing I am very passionate about as a politician, and Prof Michael Kerins is a huge advocate for a self-contained cancer unit within the hospital. 100 per cent if I am re-elected, I am going to push for that to happen. The staff there are unreal and they so deserve it.
“When you get into the system and you see exactly what is going on there. We have great people. If you have been diagnosed, be reassured that you are in the best hands.
“Hand it over to them and do what they tell you to do. I realised this was out of my control, so I just did what I was told.
Expertise
“I have to acknowledge the work that Cancer Care West do. We drive past it but we never realise what it is that they do; the support services, the psychology services. I went there for two or three sessions. I met some wonderful people.
He recommends taking care of the mind after a diagnosis such as this, and of being free to help others in the same boat.
“It is great that you can open yourself out, that people feel if there is something wrong, they can ring you and have a chat with you. It is important that people feel they can do that. With a diagnosis, you are going through mental anguish and trauma, so I ask people not to be afraid, to open up.”
During his illness, Alan attended all the Council meetings he could, turning up masked, without his trademark hair and looking pale.
“I’d say some of the councillors were saying ‘this lad is off his head to be here,’ but that got me through it all. Being busy.
“I want to raise awareness of bowel cancer and use my network to heighten awareness of the need to get checked. I got great support from the councillors and my colleagues and from the community who sent me messages of encouragement. Galway people are very warm people and I have felt that love. Some people don’t know what to say, but being there is just support.”
And with that he was off, as lively a lad as you could see. Bouncing with good health, full of an energy and appreciation for how fortunate he has been.
April is bowel cancer awareness month— the symptoms and diagnosis of bowel cancer was one of the top four pages visited on the Irish Cancer Society’s website last year, and was looked-up more than any other specific cancer type. Bowel cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in Ireland with the latest figures saying that over 2,500 people are diagnosed every year. Get yourself checked.
