Media Reaction

NAME:   Mary FitzGerald
INTERVIEWER:    Margaret Hawkins
NEWSPAPER : Farmers Journal
OCCUPATION:    Inventor of BodyTab

 

BodyTab – Health information at the touch of a buttoN

‘Part of me enjoyed what cancer taught me ‘, says Co. Clare businesswoman and mother of two Mary Fitzgerald, who is now in recovery. She tells Margaret Hawkins what she’s learned since being diagnosed and why life after cancer can actually be more special.

Cancer has been a positive thing for me, says Mary. “That may not sound right, but it has made me reassess my life. I now think about the way I want my children to see me, and I show them all the different things life is about for me. Often, as a mother, you get caught up in the doings. Now I’m not always running from A to B.

“Even with children, I was constantly having them in classes, running here to there because I felt I should be doing all this. The shoulds’ in my life became ‘I will if I’m able’,” says Mary.

Mary now concentrates on simpler activities. “Now I do small things with them – like hatching out eggs and keeping rabbits – simple, beautiful things. Before I became ill I’d say: ‘I intend to do this and that,’ or I’ll do it when they get bigger.’ Now I do it. Having been sick has reinforced hoe important those small and gentle things are.”

Mary, a former civil servant and IT worker turned songwriter and counsellor, believes as lot of reassessment takes place after an illness like cancer. “Cancer really puts you in a place where you’re unable to move or do what you want to do. A lot of renegotiation in relationships has to take place because of it, including spending more time with the children.

“Cancer has taught me a lot, a great part of which I enjoyed. Now I can see the colours. Now I take time for myself, to reflect, to read and write. Now I look at what I really do and what I want to be remembered for. I want to be remembered fro happy things, as a joyful person.”

Joy was something that left her for a long time, she says. “Life is now about putting off the small things. I would urge people to stop and listen to the birds singing. That sounds like a cliché, but it really does work. That’s what you do as a child, than you grow up and something seems to get lost in between.”

Mary believes there is a lot of fear around the illness that should be talked about. “I never used the word cancer around the children, because the whole media thing around cancer is that when you hear of it you hear of somebody dying from it,” Mary says.

“There’s a lot of fear around the word, especially for children. I use the word now because I am in recovery. It’s better in the long run to talk about the fear, share it and let it go,” she explains.

ALTRUISTIC ‘MOVER AND SHAKER’
Mary Fitzgerald has worked with Mother Teresa in Calcutta and in Romanian orphanages in the past. “I wanted to do something to solve problems for other people. I’ve always been like that,” she says.

After coming home to Ireland, she saw the need for a  refuge for women and children affected by domestic violence. With help and funding from friends, she set up Clare Haven Services in 1993. The custom-built facility now has space for 10 families and is funded by the HSE and Clare Co. Council.

“I knew there was work to do at home when I went to work at the Garda Station in Ennis one morning and saw a mother and her children – victims of domestic violence – had been sitting on a bench all night because there was no room in the Limerick refuge. I realised there was no refuge in Clare, and that’s how it started.”

Mary’s illness also triggered a business idea that now has Irish Heart Foundation sanction.

RECORD SYSTEM IDEA
Finding it difficult to remember what treatments  and medications she’s had over the years, she came up with the idea of developing Bodytab – a family health recording system in notebook and computer format.

“I knew I was allergic to morphine after a bad reaction following a Caesarean section, yet I was being prescribed it when I became ill with cancer. My file didn’t even state that, as the hospital didn’t share files with the maternity unit.

“I was taken aback that there were two different files on me. That’s when I saw the need to start keeping records myself. Everybody needs to keep medical records of what illnesses they’ve had, vaccinations, treatment and so on, so they can be clear about their history when they are asked by medical staff.”

This is just as important as keeping a family album; it is a medical family tree. If you fill it in you can see patterns and modify your behaviour if you need to. For example, watching your cholesterol if heart problems run in the family.

“Record systems like that are important to have for future generations too. It’s not about being sick, it’s about not getting sick. You can look at your treatment in a more comprehensive way and make a more informed choice about the way forward and you can tell the doctors what was tried before,” says Mary.

Mary’s treatment went on for a year and a half, and she had a designated cancer nurse during the time. “That was a great help to me, even though at the beginning I didn’t want to know. Once you are in recovery, you have to pick up the pieces of your life – that’s what I’m doing now.

“When people say ‘God, you’re looking great’, I wonder whether they’re saying it because of my sickness or because of me as a person. One thing that’s really important to me is being seen as a person: Mary Fitzgerald, not as a cancer patient.

“I have check-ups and scans now, everything is very positive but if I was to get sick again, I think I would be ok with it. If there is one thing other men and women could learn it’s that there is life after cancer – life that’s very worthwhile. It’s not easy, but it’s much more special.”