Dear Ronan,

Many years ago and In my early teens, I have some of the best memories growing up and following you and the boys around Dublin with my best friends. We would hop on a bus into town, dressed in our 90’s clothes with our dodgy perms, and listen to the Boys rehearse. We went to all of your small gigs around Dublin and supported you and even went on Pat Kenny live which I still have on VCR. We were proper fangirls.

Little did I know that one day you would set up a foundation in honor of your mother Marie Keating that would now be supporting me in the toughest time of my life. I signed up for the survive and thrive program and am so happy that I did. Some of the things I’ve leaned on this course are setting weekly tasks for myself which I will continue to do after the course, learned how to deal with difficult decisions and become a self-manager.

Before I started this programme, I couldn’t even say the word Cancer and kind of felt a bit ashamed of it. Like I had let my body down. Having met the other women on this course and seen how brave, inspirational, and supportive they are, I can now say proudly that I have survived Breast Cancer and am proud of what I have overcome.

I would highly recommend survive and thrive to anybody who is on their cancer journey and would hope hospitals around Ireland would let their patients know about this wonderful service.

 

Thank you Ronan!

 

Amanda xx