Mickey's Life Matters

Mickey is a family man, 50 years of age, devoted to Mags and his grown up sons Shane and Corey, teenage daughter Sarah (13 & a real daddy's girl) and their lovely grandchildren Lucy, Eve, Stella and Ada. (Gangang is their world) He was diagnosed with Ewings Sarcoma, which is a rare form of cancer. After aggressive treatment and a period of no evidence of disease, the lung nodules have come back and are incurable. Monday 21st of September Mickey and Mags received the devastating news that the cancer has spread to the lymph nodes in the chest. It is looking like Mags will have to leave her part time job and Mickey is unable to work due to illness. We need to give them a hand out to help with the huge travel and living costs. Mickey will have to travel from Kilkenny to Vincent's hospital in Dublin daily for his treatments. Between diesel and parking it will cost in excess of €200 per week. At a time like this worrying about excess costs, living expenses and how they will manage on reduced income is something that they shouldn't need to worry about, so we have set up this go fund me to help with these. As this cancer is so unpredictable and so rare their time together should be spent enjoying each other and making beautiful memories.  Mickey's story, told by his wife Mags October 1st 2017 is a day I’ll never forget. Mickey got up and went to play a game of golf, and played well. He came home at 1pm and sat at the table for the Sunday roast. Everything was normal until he said "l have a headache, I’ll go sit on the couch." l followed him in and he slumped to one side. l rang Caredoc and took him straight in. We walked out after an hour because there was no sign of him being seen and his headache was worse. l took him to A&E but on arrival his headache was gone. The medical team said he could go home as it was probably a normal headache or migraine, but something didn't sit right with me because he never complains and the fact he was slumped on the couch was worrying me. So l kept asking for an x-ray. I persisted, knowing in my gut that something was wrong. Eventually they agreed and it revealed a 5.5cm tumour. Within hours Mickey was in Beaumont hospital and two days later, on October 3rd 2017, he underwent brain surgery. Surgeons were only able to remove 60% of the tumour due to its location. He then had a pet scan in Blackrock Clinic and nodules were found in both lungs. It was then that he was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma. Mickey underwent 3 rounds of VIDE chemo in Waterford Hospital, then 30 rounds of radiotherapy to the brain in James’s Hospital then another 3 rounds of VIDE chemo in Waterford. He was originally told he would be having radiotherapy to his lungs as well, but after 2 rounds of chemo his lungs were clear so there was no need for further treatment. After 10 months of treatment Mickey was considered NED (no evidence of disease) but 9 months later the lung nodules returned. Mickey has now gotten the awful news that these nodules are not curable. Any treatment given now is to hopefully shrink and stabilise tumours.