'I’d just like people to know that there can be life after chemo'

A Glenswilly man who has made a full recovery from cancer and is preparing to participate in the New York marathon in two weeks’ time has said he is “blown away” by the response to a charity page he has set up.

Joe Gibbons, 38, is a storeman at Curry’s electrical shop in Letterkenny and with the help of his general manager Martin Goldrick, set up a GoFundMe less than a fortnight ago to raise money for Cancer Care West Support Centre Donegal and Pieta. To date, he has raised over €7,500. Joe plans to run the New York marathon less than a year after being given the all-clear from lymphoma - a cancer of the glands.

“The generosity of people is amazing,” he told DonegalLive. “We’ve been blown away by the response and can only say thank you to everyone. There are so many, so thank you all.”

Just two years ago Joe and his Glenswilly team exited the Donegal Senior Football Championship and having taken back to the roads and running, he was confident in his progress.

He preparing for another marathon, in Belfast, where he was aiming to break the three-hour mark. About three weeks beforehand, he noticed blood in his urine - twice - and felt it best to get it checked, having spoken to his wife Susanna, who is a Hospice nurse.

His bloods were clear, having gone to Dr Ciaran Roarty, at Scally McDaid Medical Practice in Letterkenny, and all seemed well.

“I had one hand on the door handle about to walk out the door and Dr Ciaran told me to get on the bed,” Joe says. “We joked that seeing I’d paid the €50 for the check, and he found a lump on my groin, which I didn’t even know I had.”

Ten days out from the marathon, Joe found himself in casualty and, after a long day waiting with Joe still planning a training run, had a scan, which, the day, the results were due from Professor Ken Mulpeter, FRCPI, Consultant in Geriatric and Internal Medicine.

Joe, a father of two boys - Jack, now eight, and six-year-old Oisin - admits he felt a little uneasy when called into the nurses’ canteen, with the nurses, who were having lunch, asked to leave the room.

To donate to Joe's New York Marathon GoFundMe please click here

“I heard I had lymphoma,” Joe says. “I was shocked. He spoke for 10 minutes and all I could hear was ‘cancer’. I remember asking ‘are you sure?’. I’ll never forget the replay - I was told: ‘If there’s an animal in the woods with a trunk then 99 times out of 100 it’s an elephant.’”

A biopsy soon confirmed the worst fears and there was another lump on Joe’s shoulder, and on the weekend of his 37th birthday, which was in early June of last year - he learned he would be undertaking chemotherapy the following week.

“We had been making plans on what to do, so I decided to do a 5k in Letterkenny to empty the tank as they say, and then we, as a family, went to Arena 7 for dinner,” Joe says.

The following Tuesday, Joe was receiving chemo, from 9am to 4pm, which he would do once every three weeks for six bouts initially. From the start, he could feel the swelling reducing, although over the course of the weeks his body tired. This, though, he would learn, wasn’t untoward, as the cancerous cells began to die.

“You’d be dreading it,” he says. “Get it done - grand - then week one would be fine, as would week two. Then you’d be thinking about having to go again.”

After completion of the course, Joe was at St James’ Hospital in Dublin for PET (positron emission tomography) and a week before Christmas, came the official word. He was in remission.

“I felt like I won the lotto,” he says.

New year. New plans. Although it took the bowel and stomach time to heal, Joe - now a celiac - began to run again. He had played senior football since 2003 and having helped Glenswilly to success in the Intermediate championship two years later, would win three Donegal SFC titles in 2011, 2013 and 2016 alongside the likes of All-Ireland winners Michael Murphy, Neil Gallagher and Gary ‘Copper’ McFadden.

Running is something that grew on Joe down the years. He got the bug and loved the long runs a lot more than the short and sweet ones. He built up the miles and linked up with Milford Athletic Club. Whilst life was smooth he ran the 2019 Dublin marathon - his first ever - in memory of friend Manus Kelly, who was tragically killed at the Donegal International Rally that year.

In May of this year, he took part in the Belfast marathon, with his three sisters - Karen, Breda and Michelle - relaying the 26 miles and 385 yards between them and since then Joe has completed the Omagh and Galway half-marathons, the latter in a PB time of 77 minutes and 45 seconds, earlier this month.

“Susanna and I are 10 years married this year and had planned something,” Joe says. “And the New York Marathon was something I always had on the bucket list. It was a matter, in the last few months, is building myself up and making sure my body was able for it.

“I’ve decided to try and raise money, in doing the marathon, for Cancer Care West Support Centre Donegal and Pieta, who are two very important charities.”

The race, which takes place on Sunday, November 5, will take runners through all five boroughs of New York City, starting on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge on Staten Island and passing through Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, and the Bronx, before finishing in Central Park. Joe and Susanna will be joined by friends Paul Rodgers and Geraldine, Tommy Duddy and Louise.

“There is a shock factor when you get cancer. It was for me, Susanna, the boys, my parents - Patrick and Margaret - my sisters … everyone really. As well as the charities, I’d just like for people to know that there can be life after chemo and anyone who knows me knows I’m relatively quiet. But if my story can do a little for charity and even helps one person get over the shock of being told they have cancer then I would be delighted.”