RTE presenter and cancer survivor Aine Lawlor has revealed that her father is battling the disease.
The Morning Ireland host is in recovery following her fight with breast cancer, which saw her undergo several rounds of chemotherapy and radiotherapy along with a mastectomy.
She said that sometimes “you have to have hope and pray that things will work out for the best”.
Depressed
“Cancer has never left my life. My dad’s got cancer at the moment. I’ve a friend who’s recovering from her second bout of leukaemia and is thriving,” said Aine.
“I have other friends who are sick and I’ve other friends who have died, but it doesn’t mean I’m depressed all the time about it. It just means I’m determined. I think I’m very lucky.”
Aine, who lost her mother to breast cancer, said her father has overcome several health battles in the past and she is trying to stay positive.
“He’s an elderly man and he’s a paraplegic and he’s had strokes and he’s survived an awful lot. This one at the moment looks a bit nasty, but we have to see how it goes. He’s very brave,” she said.
“You have to have hope. Sometimes you just have to have fortitude too, but it reminds you every day why it’s important to do things like this.”
Aine was diagnosed in 2011 with HER2-positive breast cancer, which tends to be a more aggressive strain.
She underwent a clinical trial at St Vincent’s Hospital and was prescribed Herceptin.
“I want people to be able to benefit from medicine the way I did, because even if it’s only extra time, it’s so precious to people. None of us are ready to give up quite yet,” said Aine.
“I love my life. I love every second of the time I’ve been given, but I’m really conscious that I depended on new medicines.
“It was just random that those medicines had come along at the time that I got sick. We still need more new medicines.”
Aine said there is “tremendous research” being done in Ireland into cancer, but the disease is constantly evolving, so the medicine needs to keep changing too.
Clever
“But I have huge hope and the doctors and the researchers are so clever and there’s so much commitment. I think it’s just about keeping up the effort,” she said.
The mum-of-four was at St Stephen’s Green yesterday helping to promote an event in aid of the Caroline Foundation, which works towards raising funds for cancer research.
The Give Us A Song campaign is calling on music lovers to give a sponsored performance over the weekend of February 4 – World Cancer Day – to help drum up much-needed funds.
[“source-ndtv”]
