'This is only the start of a long journey in Saoirse’s life'

Photo: Mother and daughter Fiona and Saoirse Murphy from Clonown.

The organiser of a GoFundMe page for a mother and daughter from South Roscommon battling cancer has said she, and her family, are “astounded” by the community's generosity which has seen over €33,000 raised in a week.

“We're flabbergasted and blown away (by the support) and the excitement when it just kept going up the day I started it (Friday last). I think we had reached the target of €5,000 within a few hours,” Nicky Bourke, who lives in Cornafulla, explains to the Westmeath Independent a few days later, after setting up the fundraising page for her beloved niece Saoirse (14) from Clonown, who will shortly start proton therapy treatment in Germany.

At the same time, poignantly, her mother Fiona is undergoing chemotherapy to treat breast cancer after both were diagnosed within months of each other.

Everything has happened so fast, and while Nicky admits it's been hard for everyone to get their head around the fact both are having treatment, their strength and pragmatism have been inspiring.

She cannot thank people enough for their support and it means there is one less thing for her sister and niece to worry about in an already stressful time involving constant appointments and travel.

“They've just astounded us with their generosity. We are all shocked, it's just crazy," Nicky says, adding that she set up the page because her sister had been on sick leave from work for two years with prolapsed discs in her back and was waiting for an operation before all of this happened.

“She had the surgery on her neck and it was just after that, maybe a week or two she went to the doctors with a lump in April.

“She found out pretty quickly that it was advanced but not like stage 4 or anything. She needed treatment very quickly so she started chemo within a couple of weeks of her diagnosis. They did the biopsy that day which is unusual.”

With five out of six chemo sessions now done, Fiona is due to have surgery next and then begin rounds of radiotherapy.

While everyone was “devastated” by her shock diagnosis, the family would suffer another hammer blow at the end of July, shortly after Saoirse’s 14th birthday when she was diagnosed with a large brain tumour.

She had been unwell for some time with headaches that doctors were investigating the cause of, but when she started vomiting in the morning it became much more serious. An MRI in Ballinasloe revealed that she had a large brain tumour which was later found to be malignant.

Nicky says she will never forget that day waiting for the test results seeing a white-faced Saoirse come around the corner and Fiona, already in the midst of her own battle, feeling her sister’s heart shattered as they hugged.

Saoirse, who is a student in Athlone Community College, was taken to Temple Street where she underwent a nine-hour surgery within days to remove the tumour called medulloblastoma which normally affects young children.

Without complaint or an ounce of self-pity, Saoirse dealt with the situation so well, Fiona says, even comforting her sister Teagan, who is involved with Athlone Sub Aqua Club and the youth club in St Mary’s Hall, and has just begun first year in Coláiste Chiaráin, telling her she would be okay. Her eldest sister Rachel is studying animation and illustration in Athlone IT.

“Fiona is so pragmatic and her brilliant attitude is ‘This has happened, it’s unlucky but this is the medicine I have to take, I’m going to feel crap for a year and then I’m going to be fine’.”

“I really think that has been passed on to Saoirse so in some ways, in my opinion, it has worked out well for Saoirse to see her mum what she’s going through and how strong she has been especially with the loss of her hair,” explaining that the teenager has decided to donate her locks to The Little Princess Trust.

The aftermath of the surgery was extremely tough, and thankfully, she has recovered to be well enough to go for the treatment in Germany.

“Straight after her surgery, she lost the ability to use her right arm. She couldn’t walk, she was in a wheelchair. For Fiona those initial few weeks after Saoirse’s surgery was horrific,” Nicky says, adding that not all of the tumour could be removed because it was so close to the brain stem. “Any one of those symptoms could have stayed. They just said take it as it comes day by day, the brain is healing,” Nicky recalls.

On Sunday, Saoirse and her father Owen travelled to Essen in Germany to get fitted for a mask to start proton therapy later this month. It has fewer side effects for children than radiotherapy and is not available in Ireland.

Nicky pays a special tribute to cancer charities and, in particular, the Gavin Glynn Foundation who have been “incredible” organising everything for the Germany trip. The HSE covers the cost of the treatment.

In between all of this, there are other medical appointments and wig fittings, things no one could ever have imagined a few months ago.

“I don’t know how she is doing it but Saoirse is completely accepting of it all. I’ve never seen anything like it.

“I mean I lost my leg nine years ago and I’ve had a lot of problems but I’ve never been anything like Saoirse in how I coped and she’s 14.

“Her friends – the support they have given her is incredible. They’re just there for her. They come, visit her, bring her down the bog, just have a laugh together and she can talk privately to them,” she explains, singling out her best friend Isabel for special mention and her sisters for all their help.

She also thanks Thomas and Rosemarie Murphy in Drum – Saoirse’s grandparents who are “incredible support and always have been.”

“I believe it’s the 14th of September that she and Fiona go back to Germany and then it’s six weeks with treatment every day.

“It’s just so scary, scary in the fact it could come back. This is only the start of a long journey in Saoirse’s life, and we pray to God it never does come back but I’d say she’ll have to be monitored for the rest of her life. It’s pretty full-on,” adds Nicky, explaining that after the proton therapy Saoirse will undergo months of chemotherapy.

Asked to describe her sister and her niece, Nicky lights up as talks about both of them.

“What she’s been through in her life, she’s amazing, and she’s an amazing mother,” Nicky says, paying tribute to her for all the help she has given her with her medical issues since she moved to Athlone in 2012.

Talking about Saoirse, Nicky uses words like amazing, funny, silly, popular.

“She’d do anything for anyone. We’ve always said she’ll end up being a nurse or carer of some kind. She actually said after Temple Street that she’d love to be a children’s nurse.”

Both mother and daughter are in shock and hugely thankful to everyone who has donated to the GoFundMe page especially the young children giving their pocket money.

“We are stunned and very humbled. We want to thank everyone,“ Nicky says before her young son Freddie (10) sums it up well by saying that there are a “colossal amount of kind people” helping his great cousin, over 1,000 donors at the time of writing.

“So many people have been asking asked how can we help, what can we do, and Fiona would not have accepted it. She’s just too proud so this was the only way to get Fiona to accept help is to show her that everyone wants to help,” Nicky says candidly, ending with a smile that she was thinking in the car on the way over that “life has thrown us so many lemons but the community has made us a whole pile of lemonade.”

To donate go to https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-saoirse-age-14-to-fight-cancer-it-sucks