For a year or two—at least—the word “cancer” whistles through the winds of every town and village in Ireland like a banshee’s curse. An old word and familiar disease now carries with it a strange new fear. It’s a disease we thought we knew but in recent times, more and more, it feels as if we barely knew cancer at all. At present, it moves in sudden, hushed and aggressive movements with many victims beyond treatment by the time the news hits and they receive a diagnosis, and often a death sentence in the same breathe. Increasingly, too, it attacks young and old alike.
Indiscriminately.
Or so it seems.
Today, I sat down to talk with Mary Lafferty, 37, from Donegal and now living in Derry. She’s a former health care worker and recently completed chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments for a very aggressive and rare form cancer—Sarcoma—that appeared out of the blue one day when it ballooned on and out from her thigh. In short, Sarcoma, is a diverse group of over 80 mesenchymal tumours (bone, muscle, ligament and soft tissue), and is strongly linked to DNA alterations, with up to one in five cases associated with inherited or acquired genetic changes. These cancers are driven by DNA mutations that either switch on oncogenes or turn off tumour suppressor genes, leading to uncontrolled cellular growth. Well, that’s the official blurb.
Not in the official texts or scientific studies is Mary’s belief, a belief and concern shared by many. Mary believes her form of cancer is linked to her double Covid vaccination. The latter—a decision she was compelled to take for her job as a health care worker attending to the needs of the elderly.
This is Mary’s story.
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