Danny’s Story:
A life-long native of Cavan, Danny, has been described as a ‘Miracle Man’ by his consultant at the Mater. The 76-year old has certainly made an amazing recovery from detailed, and quite futuristic, cancer surgery… and it all started with a trip to the Dentist.
“In April 2022, I made a routine visit to my local dentist, Josephine Brady. During the check-up, Dr. Brady remarked on a discolouration on my gum at the back of my mouth, where I’d had some work done a couple of months earlier. Concerned that I should have it looked at, she referred me to the Dental Hospital in Dublin.
“An appointment was made for early July 2022 and during that visit they took a biopsy of my gum. I had a follow up meeting a week later and I was asked to bring my son with me, and I thought to myself there’s something up here. Sure enough, they broke the bad news to me that it was cancer in my mouth and throat. I was stunned to be honest.
“I was referred to the Mater for treatment and they organised my consultation for my local hospital in Cavan. It was decided to start me on 12 sessions of chemotherapy as my first course of treatment and hope to reduce the size of the tumour. I had a session each week until March 2023, but it didn’t seem to have any effect on the growth. It was growing from my gum and looked like a little cauliflower spreading over that area, and eventually it started to cover my airway.
“In April, I was admitted to the Mater for a scope and to check on the spread of the tumour. While I was there my breathing continued to disimprove due to the growth, and one night I felt like I wasn’t going to be able to catch my breath at all, like I was suffocating. Prof Fergal O’Duffy, who was looking after me, was in to chat to me about it the following morning and, although major surgery was planned for later in the month, he felt I needed an immediate interim operation to clear the airway. That evening at 6pm on the 13th April I went to theatre and by the following morning the breathing difficulty was sorted.
“The major operation was scheduled for two weeks later on the 27th April. Prior to the surgery, Prof O’Duffy took me through all the steps – and we did joke about it a little, I remember him saying to me ‘Danny, when you get through this operation, you might look like you’ve been hit by a bus’ – and I said ‘Sure maybe that’ll be an improvement’ 😁. If I’m honest, I really wasn’t stressed about the op, I had 110% faith in the team. My tumour had to be tackled and although it was going to be tricky, the Prof assured me it could be done and they had the best equipment in the country to do it.
“The surgery took almost 12 hours to complete. They had to split my lower jaw bone to gain access to back of my throat. Then they removed a part of the throat called the oropharynx along with my tonsils and some of the base of my tongue. This area was reconstructed with tissue from my wrist in the form of a ‘free flap’ – this means the tissue is completely relocated from one part of the body to another, including the blood supply. Then, they had to take a skin graft from my leg to fill the hole in my wrist. The surgery was carried by Prof O’Duffy and Ms. Shirley Potter (Plastics).
“Chatting with one of the team about it a little while later, he was saying it was almost futuristic surgery and that there was a lot of the Mater staff down observing it, because it was so advanced. He described it as being a little like that movie ‘Face Off’ where Nicholas Cage has the skin of the front of the face peeled back and then replaced… but I was oblivious to it all. I was out of it for about 24 hours after surgery, but one of the ICU nurses stayed with me all that time. Then after about four days, I was able to move out of intensive care.
“I recovered quite quickly after that. A feeding tube had been inserted in my stomach during the op, to allow my throat to heal, but I was able to take my first sip of water on the 8th May. My voice also came back very well, it goes a bit low sometimes and you’d think I had a dose on me, but I was never a singer, so we don’t need to worry about that. I was able to leave the Mater on the 15th May and head home to Cavan, knowing that my cancer had been removed.
“Since then I’ve had some follow up radiotherapy as an additional part of my treatment, and a PET Scan at the Mater in November showed everything was clear and nothing had regrown. Although there are a few small effects of the treatment that I’m still overcoming, I’m feeling really well and can potter around to my heart’s content. This year I spent Christmas with my Daughter, and then had all five of my children and their families at ours for New Year – it was fabulous, and I’m so grateful to Prof O’Duffy and his wonderful team that I was here to enjoy it all in such good health.”
Danny O’Hanlon, Cavan
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