How did vicky change at the end?
Answers
Answer:
Her final three sessions of internal radiation added to this “hell”, “but I did it, because I thought it would cure me.” And it did. In February 2015, she was cancer-free.
Explanation:
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Whistle blowers don’t sprout from the ether. They emerge from direct experience with an event or action that challenges their moral compass to the extent that they feel left with no other choice but to speak out.
It’s not a title that anyone is eager to earn either. To become a whistle blower is to believe something is inherently wrong with a system, and by confronting that fact, they have to give up a certain aspect of their life, namely the sense of spontaneity.
That is probably the main deterrent for most. Somebody who exposes a fault cannot expect to resume life as it was prior. The only hope afterwards is that others are as willing to denounce such a practice or way of life, one they were likely comfortable within beforehand.
There is resistance. People aren’t always keen to accept a fact that alters their version of the world. As such, one person’s hero is another’s inconvenience.
Depending on whom you ask Vicky Phelan will fall into one of those categories. If selflessness is a virtue though, she leads by example. Primarily because she surrendered her own life’s spontaneity at a period when she could have been excused for staying down the safer path.
At a time when she was made aware of how limited her lifespan was, she gave up her own privacy, making this personal information public in order to ensure that others could rightfully claim ownership of theirs. She didn’t lunge for heroism. It was a necessary act of selflessness at a necessary moment.
She said it herself outside the Four Courts on 25 April. That was the day her case against the HSE and Texas-based Clinical Pathology Laboratories concluded with the latter agreeing to pay her €2.5 million for the incorrect reading of her smear tests, which resulted in a terminal cancer diagnosis:
“There are no winners here today. I am terminally ill and there is no cure for my cancer.
“My settlement will mostly be spent on buying me time and on paying for clinical trials to keep me alive and to allow me to spend more time with my children.”
When we first speak, she’s out of breath having rushed to catch a train that will take her from Dublin to Portlaoise for a Vitamin C transfusion. Fresh from a series of public appearances, including an honorary reception in Kilkenny, her place of birth a few days prior, the 43-year-old Limerick resident jokes , “It’s almost a full time job to be honest.”
“I find this very weird. I’ve had people calling me a hero, but I don’t see that. It was just the right thing to do.”
Her reason for blowing the lid on the Cervical Check scandal was to ensure that her daughter inherits a healthcare system that won’t fail her as it did Vicky. You could interpret it as being part of her will, this urgent desire that the HSE reform and change its policy of voluntary disclosure. With that being the case, it’s not just a will for her children, but a will for the people of Ireland.
Unsurprisingly, news of this 4cm tumour shocked her. Immediately placing her faith the abilities of her doctor, she switched to autopilot.
“They told me what the treatment was. I did it. No questions asked.”
The treatment lasted five weeks, each comprising five days radiation and one of chemotherapy. Her final three sessions of internal radiation added to this “hell”, “but I did it, because I thought it would cure me.”
And it did. In February 2015, she was cancer-free. Since it had spread to her lymph nodes however, the chance of recurrence was between 70 and 85%.
On 27 September 2017, she was called in to see her gynaecologist, Dr. Kevin Hickey for a conversation and a “very vague” one at that, according to Vicky.
“We’ve been told by Cervical Check to contact women who had been included in this audit,” she recalled him saying.
This audit, conducted by the national cervical smear programme found that her original 2011 test had missed the cancer. However, this fact was not made apparent to her, nor did he show Vicky her report. “There was a ‘query’. That was all.”
n the summer of 2016, all of the results dating back to 2008 were shared with the relevant treating clinicians. They could then exercise their right to disclose this information on a voluntary basis, using their judgement to assess whether or not the findings might harm the patient.
The details only came to Vicky in drips however. While she considered legal action, then and there she “just parked it.” She was already dealing with enough in her personal life.
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