A survivor of cancer has spoken of finding out she was pregnant while getting treatment and how advances in science helped her.
Mother-of-two Caitriona Greene was eight weeks pregnant with her second child when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2021.
The teacher from Donegal could only start treatment when she was over 12 weeks gone.
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Caitriona and her baby survived the treatment and are now enjoying life to the fullest today.
Speaking on TG4 documentary Biseach ón Ailse, Caitriona who did 10 rounds of chemotherapy before giving birth to her beautiful daughter Mary Bridget said: “You have to trust the research and think about the women who came before me who didn’t have research.
“I thought about the first pregnant woman to receive chemotherapy who didn’t have research.
“She did that so women like me could sit in that chair and know that I was doing the right thing.
“That I was getting my treatment and that the baby was safe.”
Caitriona, 40, said she had very little knowledge of cancer before being diagnosed herself with it, she said: “My aunt had cancer but she lived in England. I knew she was sick but I didn’t know what she went through until I went through it myself.
“It’s not a subject you want to know about. When you’re in it then you have to learn the vocabulary and everything associated with it very fast.
“It doesn't take you long to know exactly what’s involved.”
And she said she defined all the odds to fall pregnant after being told she would not have any more children.
She said: “I found out that I was pregnant and I had Doherty in March 2018. Honestly I was completely happy. That was when I found the lump in my breast.
“You never forget the day the doctor tells you you have cancer. When I had the appointment with my oncologist she told me, ‘I’m very sorry, Caitriona but you won’t be able to have any more children’. My heart broke.
“I went to Galway then to have the operation. A fortnight after the operation I was in the car with my mother and sister and I told my sister, ‘Brid you have to stop I feel sick. I had Shepherds pie last night’.
“I remember my mother, she turned around and said, ‘Caitriona, when you were pregnant with Dorothy you were like that with Shepards Pie, is there any chance you could be pregnant?’, I was like ‘Not at all’.
“I took a test and came out, my mother and sister sat there and I said, ‘Girls, I’m pregnant’. A mix of emotions followed then.”
And she said she was over the moon when her little bundle of joy arrived, she continued: “I had ten rounds of chemotherapy and then they decided to give me a C Section. They took the baby and said, ‘you have a little girl’. I was so happy she was there and healthy and that I was going to continue my treatment and that a life awaited the four of us when this was all over.”
Presenter and breast cancer survivor herself, Evelyn O’Rourke, brought Caitriona and fellow cancer survivorAnn Marie O’Sullivan face to face with ground-breaking cancer researchers in Ireland for the programme.
The documentary highlights how more people are surviving cancer in Ireland today thanks to investment in research and why there is a critical need for more to be carried out into less poorer prognosis cancers.
Just 50 years ago, less than half of people diagnosed with breast and prostate cancer could look forward to more than five year’s survival.
However, thanks to investment in cancer research, the five-year survival rates for the two forms of cancers are now 88% and 93% respectively.
But some cancer survival rates are still less than 15%.
Biseach ón Ailse airs this Thursday(June 22) at 8.30pm on TG4.
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