Sarah Clarke: Family experience of blood cancer behind poignant programme
I met Eimear Smyth for a news report in the summer of 2018.
She was a young woman who’d been battling Hodgkin’s lymphoma and who, after relapsing twice, desperately needed to find a stem cell donor.
Countless rounds of chemo and a transplant of her own stem cells had failed.
Neither of her siblings was a match, so this was the next and only course of treatment open to the 24-year-old - her last chance to beat cancer.
At that point, I had some experience of blood cancer. The previous year - 25 April 2017 to be exact - my nephew Jack was diagnosed with leukaemia. He was 15.
Jack is now in remission and studying politics at Sheffield University, but it has been one hell of a battle which he has bravely fought.
And while check-ups continue and care needs to be taken, especially due to Covid, it’s now recovery on which Jack, and we as a family, feel fortunate to be focused.
I recall my brother telling me he hoped the chemo regime (one year intensive, three years maintenance in Jack’s case) in the fantastic Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool - gruelling and debilitating as it was - would be enough to rid Jack’s young body of the cancer and that we wouldn’t have to pursue a stem cell transplant.
A doctor himself, my brother knew just how difficult it would be - both to find a match and to endure. But how if it’s the last resort, it is, of course, what you’d pursue.
He also mentioned in passing that I (as the youngest of his three siblings) would be (after Jack’s little sister Lucy) the best candidate for a potential match.
Fortunately, we didn’t have to go down that road, but it was a conversation I remembered distinctly when I met the Smyth family and heard in particular dad Seán’s desperate plea for someone to help save his daughter’s life.
Their appeal on UTV Live did help find a positive match for Eimear. It also led to a massive rise in people signing the stem cell register in Northern Ireland.
But it wouldn’t have happened without the Smyth family’s resolute drive to raise awareness in their local community - speaking to us on UTV Live, at schools, in GAA clubs, and other community centres.
We decided to follow Eimear's journey for a programme about her treatment and recovery.
Sadly, that's not how it turned out.
Eimear passed away on 27 June 2019, having married her childhood sweetheart Phillip Gooderham in hospital just days before.
Her stem cell transplant was a success. She was told she was clear of cancer, but it was a complication of the treatment that led to her death.
It was Eimear’s dying wish to raise awareness of stem cell donation and to help further research into the treatment to help others.
Read more: ‘Eimear’s last wish’ to continue stem cell donor campaign
So, although this programme is an entirely different one from the one we set out to make, it’s still one of hope and courage. And a family's desire to create a positive and lasting legacy in Eimear’s memory.
But, most of all, it pays tribute to a remarkable young woman who died too soon.
Up Close: Eimear’s Wish - Thursday 28 January at 10.45pm on UTV
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