A Letter from Dublin (No. 3)

 

April 5^th 2003

 

Hello All —

 

            I know it’s been over two months since my last letter from Dublin — and my brother Paul in Tokyo has taken me to task for being lazy — but I thought it would make more sense to wait until I had seen Dr. Armstrong again, which I did yesterday, April 4^th, at St. Luke’s Hospital in Dublin.

By the way, at this stage and for the benefit of anyone reading this under the mistaken impression that they’re getting a nice newsy update on how things are in Ireland’s capital, I should warn them to jump ship and delete this immediately. The reason for the letter is that last August during the Dubliners’ 40^th Anniversary Tour I was diagnosed with throat cancer, and this letter is merely the third in a series of bulletins which I was asked to write by some friends who wanted to be kept up-to-date with my treatment. So now you know.

            Anyway, Dr. Armstrong performed a laryngoscopy again and poked around a bit, and this time to my amazement pronounced himself very pleased with the results of his examination. He said that it was the “cleanest” exam he’d performed on me since we began, and try as I might this was all I could get from him by way of comment. I realized I would have to extract any information piece by piece, as I did the last time. In February, you may remember, I had to be happy with “No green light, but no red light either” and finally got him to admit to “Well, perhaps the green side of amber”. No oncology specialist likes to make predictions, but Dr. Armstrong is about as outgoing as a Trappist monk when it comes to making a statement about my condition.  Anyway he admitted that he was happy with whatever he saw in my throat, and said there would be no treatment and made another appointment for three month’s time, in July, which cheered me up greatly.

            I then asked him about the swellings in my throat which are making me hoarse and are very constrictive, and indeed prevented me from singing in London in March (I’ll explain about this in a moment). I also asked him about the lack of saliva and the continued absence of the sense of taste.

 With regard to the saliva and the sense of taste, he said that the taste buds do return, but very slowly. But at least I know it will come back at some stage, and I presume the same applies to the saliva.

As for the swellings and the hoarseness, I should explain about the London reference. In February a record company called “Sanctuary” (which actually once was “Transatlantic”, the Dubliners first record label) released a CD of 20 old Dubliners songs. The album is called “Spirit of the Irish” and was aimed for the St. Patrick’s Day rise in awareness of things Irish, especially in Britain. It succeeded and entered the British album charts at around number 20. The record company wanted the Dubliners to come to London just before St. Patrick’s Day in March to do some promotional work — radio and press interviews and a short private concert at a reception for some music industry insiders on one of the nights. John Sheahan asked me to come to London with them for the promotion as I’m on a couple of the tracks. As it happened, neither Paddy Reilly nor Ronnie Drew was available on the night of the mini-concert, so the vocal duties were to be shared by Seán Cannon and myself.  As I had performed at the end of last year with the Dubliners in Germany and in the Point Depot, I was quite confident that there would be no problem, but sadly the sound that came out bore very little resemblance to my voice. I was really hoarse and it just got worse the more I tried. It was lucky we only had to do a short gig.

I told this to Dr. Armstrong, and he told me that there had been a lot of damage done during the radium treatment which was only now becoming apparent, and that I’d have to accept that my singing days were probably over for good. He also explained that the only alternative to the aggressive radium treatment I had received over a five-month period would have been the surgical removal of my voice-box, which would have meant that I would have had no speaking voice either, and would have had to rely on artificial means to communicate. That would have been horrible.

            And so the feeling of relief I had felt after his examination was quite considerably lessened by this news about my singing prospects. I finally got him to give me an assessment of my condition, which I could pass on to my family and friends — “Well,” he said, “you can tell them ‘Good news about the cancer, bad news about the career’”.

            Far be it from me to second-guess a professional, especially one so highly thought of as Dr. Armstrong, but I think he’s got it wrong on this one. He told me before that in his 19 years as an oncology consultant specializing in head and neck cancers, I was the only professional singer he’s treated. He’s had to tell many enthusiastic amateurs and part-time musical comedy stars that they could not sing again, but never someone like me, whose livelihood depends on it.

            I am absolutely confident that I will be able to sing again. Perhaps it won’t be this year (although I don’t see why not), and perhaps I won’t sound exactly as I did before, but I have no doubt in my mind that it will come back and that I’ll be able to perform again. I always feel it is good to have a goal, and last year during my treatment my goal was to sing with the Dubliners at the final concert in the Point Depot, Dublin, the night before New Year’s Eve. I achieved that, and it was a great feeling. My goal now is to take up the Dubliners’ kind invitation to join them as special guest on their tours in Northern Europe at the end of this year. As of this moment that is my firm intention, but of course if this changes I’ll let you know.

            So there it is for now — good news about the cancer. The big picture is that we have that invader on the run and everything else must be secondary to that. On the 16^th of this month (April) I have an appointment with Dr. Fennelly in Blackrock Clinic, who was in charge of the chemotherapy treatments, and I expect an equally positive result from that exam.

I now intend to concentrate on getting fit and strong again. My family and friends have been just as supportive as ever, and I’m still getting terrific messages of support from all over the place.  I just hope that everyone realizes how much their thoughts and prayers have been appreciated, and how helpful they have been to me over the last nine months.

 

I’ll keep you informed —

 

Slán, Jim.