A columnist with Kerry's Eye, Michael Donovan has lived much of his life in public. Now through his column, reprinted here, he shares the news that he's dying.
For three months now people who are involved in organisations raising funds for research and people who themselves have cancer have appealed to me to say, in this column, that I have cancer.
A lady from Pennsylvania living here in Tralee, made a particularly convincing appeal. She herself is, we hope, fully recovered after having surgery in the US. She maintains that a statement from me would help others. I was under the impression that most people knew it, but I see her point that I make an unequivocal statement.
I have inoperable pancreatic cancer, a tumour that to attempt to remove it would almost certainly result in my death.
I first knew something was really wrong on the Sunday Ireland played Spain in the World Cup. That morning I did something I might do twice a year. I ate a full Irish breakfast. Shortly after I vomited so violently I could barely breathe.
Then when I went to the bathroom I noticed a nasty discoloration of the urine.
The following morning I went to my doctor, who duly sent tests to the hospital. The following Friday I was sent there myself. Some days later I was informed of the bad news and 10 days later sent to the Mater.
Many have asked me what my reaction was. I still don't know and that's the truth. I never expected to be so diagnosed, believing that years of walking and swimming and fresh air would counteract all the other indulgences, but we're told one in three in this country will fall prey to the cursed disease.
Few love life as much as I do and I've always believed in living each day to the full and am more determined than ever to do exactly that because never was each day so precious. Pancreatic cancer upsets so many things. Sometimes you can't eat for days and then when you do eat unwisely, it will invariably come up. It creates almost non-stop indigestion, leaving a horrible taste that counteracts other tastes.
It causes blinding headaches and frightening vertigo, it causes constipation, an aversion to noise and great crankiness. It is extremely difficult to concentrate and you could sleep every two hours. The pain sometimes is awful.
Yes, I have always been, I think, I hope, deeply religious. Now I wonder was I praying incorrectly and yes, I have questioned my faith.
The one thing is that many of my close friends have told me that what they once saw as insurmountable problems, now seem very minuscule indeed. I often looked at wealthy people who have the wherewithal to really enjoy life and travel the world, to live in the sun during our depressing winters.
Yet a sad poverty of imagination and a seeming conviction that life is forever precludes them. That is tragic.My own regret is not having travelled more, especially in places like Utah, Arizona and Montana. Parenthood and responsibility, the very things that hinder such odysseys, are the very things that bring the greatest joys in life, and I have had a good life.
I had hoped to be much more philosophical, expressing great wisdom about life and death. Now if I could only convince the young how fast life flies by, that would be something.
This column first appeared in Kerry's Eye newspaper
Michael Donovan's Kerry's Eye column about how he's suffering from inoperable cancer is a courageous but logical step for a man who, ironically, always seems larger than life. I have known him from my early teens in Tralee, where he pioneered "record hops" in the days before disco.
One of the town's most colourful and extrovert characters, he has been singing in public for decades with various jazz bands, and was the key figure in the late-1970s heyday of pirate radio.
He served as a member of Tralee Urban Council for most of a decade - as an independent, inevitably, given his forthright views on everything and his inability ever to toe a party line.
He has been writing his Kerry's Eye column for most of that newspaper's 25-year history, and, indeed, continues to do so from his hospital bed, offering readers an unpredictable menu encompassing his eloquent rants on a variety of issues that annoy or offend him, and his reflections on all the many social and cultural events - concerts, movies, plays, parties - which he has devoured with an insatiable appetite. One of his recent columns, dealing with his stay at the Mater hospital in Dublin, even noted his pleasure at being let out for a few hours to see the Tom Cruise film, Minority Report.
He converted me to the music of Frank Sinatra, his idol, and Tony Bennett and Ella Fitzgerald, although I drew the line at sharing his appreciation for John Wayne. He always gives as good as he gets, but he remains a good friend to me and to countless others. - Michael Dwyer