Tommie Gorman: 'I still have a dodgy liver, peppered with tumours'
Tommie Gorman in the documentary, Ireland, Cancer and Me.
Tommie Gorman’s documentary Ireland, Cancer and Me (RTÉ One, Tuesday) begins with some of the now-retired journalist’s greatest hits. We see him flicking from interviews with Seamus Heaney, Roy Keane, and Ian Paisley, to his final Nine O’Clock News sign-off from his customary Belfast balcony perch, just over a month ago.
The picture then switches to an emotional Gorman, having just completed that last report, as he introduces the documentary. It’s a clever way of drawing a distinction between the professional and the personal, while simultaneously blurring that line.
Tommie Gorman has lived with cancer for 27 years, since first he was diagnosed in 1994 with a rare form of the disease, neuro-endochrine tumours (NETs).
In the course of his work as RTÉ’s Europe correspondent, he discovered that under EU law he was entitled to treatment available in another EU country, and in 1998 he became the first Irish citizen to avail of treatment in a Swedish Centre of Excellence.
Gorman’s 2002 documentary Europe, Cancer and Me inspired hundreds of Irish citizens to seek medical treatment across the EU. Now, he looks at the establishment in St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin of Ireland’s Centre of Excellence for NETs treatment, and we hear how Gorman has received treatment there.
To keep cancer at bay, Gorman has needed an injection every 28 days for the past 20 years. “It’s like a monthly fill of petrol. You can feel the engine chugging toward the end of each month,” he says.
Every six months, he undergoes a series of tests, and he likens that process to Judgement Day. There are no guarantees, and no accurate way of predicting the future, and stability remains his best hope of survival.
“I still have a dodgy liver, peppered with tumours,” Gorman says toward the end of the documentary. “There are signs of the disease at a number of other areas of my body. It won’t go away.” Walking the shoreline in his native Strandhill in Sligo, we see Gorman reflecting on his good fortune to still be alive, and – given some improvements to our health system - his pride in being Irish.
It all makes for emotional viewing, and an impressive portrait of a man who has genuinely made a difference.
