A feisty gran whose battle for a vital hospital bed for a cancer operation prompted widespread protests is due to return to her Ballyshannnon home later this week.
Josie D’arcy said yesterday that she’s determined to battle her illness although doctors were unable to remove an endangered kidney.
Josie was admitted to hospital six weeks after a huge tumour was discovered on her right kidney.
Planned surgery to remove the kidney was twice put back because of a catalogue of frightening developments that underline the chaos within the HSE.
The 64-year-old and her family feared the cancer might spread and delay could jeopardise the prospects of a successful operation.
When she finally had surgery doctors discovered complications that meant removal of the kidney was not an option.
Instead, a few days later they carried out a different procedure to “immobilise” the tumour by closing off the blood supply to it.
Josie, a publican from East Port, Ballyshannon, was assured the six-week delay between diagnosis and surgery wasn’t to blame for the failure to remove the kidney. But she’s not so sure.
She said: “The original idea was to remove the kidney. The cancer was stuck on to it like ivy, aggressive. They decided if they pulled it out it would break away into different parts of the body. So they closed me up and a few days later carried out the immobilisation procedure.
“I asked if the delay in getting me a hospital bed might have played any part. I was told No.
“But I don’t know if it made a difference, I’d say if it was an aggressive tumour it did make a difference. Six weeks is a long time.”
Josie said she has been told the immobilisation procedure has a high success rate but doctors won’t know how it’s working in her case for up to another six weeks.
Meanwhile, she has left St James’ Hospital in Dublin and is recuperating at St Joseph’s Garden Hill Nursing Home, Sligo, before returning home this weekend.
She said. “I don’t know if I have years or months and I don’t want to know. There’s no use in crying about it.
“I’m thinking positive about it. When I got over my operations and everything else and got this far I’m delighted. I’m thinking the summer is coming and I’ll be out walking my roads, down in Rossnowlagh and here and there.”
She recalled how a friend’s mother was given 18 months when she was diagnosed with cancer in her 60s but lived to 89 when she “died of old age.”
Josie added: “Nobody can really tell when you’re going to die.”

(Reporter: Paddy Clancy)