The service allowed Robert Flanagan to undergo treatment with minimal disruption to his children\u2019s lives\n<\/p>\n
Ahead of Daffodil Day, the charity published figures that show it provided chemotherapy patients with 30,000 free lifts to treatment last year.<\/p>\n
Robert Flanagan was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in January 2024, when he was 48 years old.<\/p>\n
The father of three \u2013 who is originally from Dublin, but now living in Portlaoise \u2013 used the Transport Service to get to and from his treatment in Tallaght Hospital.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I received the news of my cancer diagnosis, everything became a blur,\u201d Mr Flanagan said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy thoughts immediately turned to my wife, Caren, and our three children. I went from being on medication for piles to being told I have stage-four colorectal cancer that has spread to my liver.\u201d<\/p>\n
The family is a one-car household, meaning that balancing Mr Flanagan\u2019s treatment with everyday life became challenging.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was first diagnosed, our children were 13, 11 and five. We wanted to try keep things as normal for them as we could,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuddenly something as simple as the school run was clashing with me needing to get to my treatment in Tallaght. That\u2019s where the Irish Cancer Society\u2019s Transport Service was a lifeline for us.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose free lifts to hospital meant, among the chaos of my cancer diagnosis and treatment, that a little bit of normality could carry on at home.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m forever grateful for those lifts and I\u2019m asking people to give what they can this Daffodil Day on Friday, March 20, because the Transport Service that the Irish Cancer Society provides is fuelled by your donations and generosity.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey can\u2019t be there for families like mine without your vital support.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last year, the charity engaged in more than 26,000 support line and Daffodil Centre conversations with people affected by cancer. The Daffodil Centres provide walk-in cancer information, advice and support.<\/p>\n
The society also offered 14,300 free counselling sessions, as well as close to 6,000 free nights of night nursing for those at end of life.<\/p>\n
The society\u2019s chief executive, Nikki Gallagher, said the charity aims to raise over \u20ac6m on Daffodil Day.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe more we raise, the more we can be there for patients and their families when they need us the most,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The service allowed Robert Flanagan to undergo treatment with minimal disruption to his children\u2019s lives Ahead of Daffodil…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[158698,615,103,61,60,59303],"class_list":["post-348298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-daffodil-day","tag-dublin","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-living-with-cancer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}