A Ballerin Family’s Toughest Year

When a mum and son’s double cancer diagnosis threatened to shatter a Garvagh family, the love and support of family and friends got them through.

Mandi Millar reports

When Keeley Faulkner’s mum Gemma was diagnosed with cancer, the Ballerin nurse thought things couldn’t get any worse. She was wrong.

For just a few months later her only brother Conan (28) received the same devastating news.

“You couldn’t write it,” says Keeley (24) who has now raised over £20,000 for the organisations which helped her family when they needed it most – the Neuroscience Appeal at Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, and Bowel Cancer UK.

A nurse at the Causeway Hospital, she knows how fragile life can be but with both her mum and her brother going through cancer at the same time, even she struggled.

“I’d never known mammy to be ill. She’s just always so busy – a kind of everything woman!” laughs Keeley.

“But when she realised things weren’t quite right with her health around Spring 2024, she went to the doctor after hearing about Deborah James’ Bowel Babe campaign and always says Dame Deborah saved her life.

“She sat on the news for months though because she didn’t want to worry us which is so typical of mammy. She only told me shortly before her operation because she was going to be in the ward next to mine!

“She never mentioned cancer though but when she told me about the tests she was having I was putting the dots together.

“Mammy didn’t want a fuss and the only time I saw her emotional was just after the surgery when she broke down and said ‘I think I need to tell my sisters for I think I need them’. Mammy comes from a family of 11.”

Gemma’s recovery went well and she didn’t need follow-up chemo or radiotherapy for the grade one tumour so Keeley was determined to make the most of Christmas that year.

“I remember I’d written a wee card about the bad time we’d had in 2024 and our hopes for a better year ahead. Then on January 9, 2025, everything changed again…”

That day Conan had been heading off on a ski trip to France. A yardman at stables just south of Dublin, he’d been calling at his digs on the way to pick up a suitcase when he had a seizure.

“He was found by a woman, a retired nurse, slumped over the wheel of his jeep with the horn blaring. He was foaming at the mouth and seizing,” recalls Keeley.

“It was a fluke she’d even found him for when she’d gone out that day it was really icy and she was actually going to walk in the other direction so it was just to be.”

Conan later told the family he remembered getting the suitcase, jumping into the jeep but then not being able to get it in reverse. After that he remembered nothing.

“It took ages for the ambulance to arrive and the woman who’d found him had flagged down another fella who knew Conan. He phoned the owner of Conan’s accommodation who managed to get in touch with his boss and that’s how they got through to me in the end,” says Keeley.

After a long, cold wait for the ambulance her brother was transferred to Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, where Keeley and her mum finally caught up with him after a frantic dash from their home over treacherously icy January roads.

“When I saw Conan he was no more like my big brother. He was just like a wee boy sitting there. I remember mammy saying to the doctor, ‘just tell me what it is’. At that stage they thought he’d had a stroke,” says Keeley.

However, further tests and MRIs revealed the shocking news that Conan had in fact a brain tumour.

“I just remember mammy burst out roaring and crying and I was sitting there with a tremble on my lip and a lump in my throat, trying not to cry for her sake,” recalls Keeley, who then had to break the devastating news to her dad. A joiner, he was working in Scotland.

“Mum’s dad had died from a brain tumour when he was just 45 so she immediately was thinking the worst whereas I was clinging onto the hope they could maybe remove the tumour and get Conan treatment.

“But mum was thinking he wasn’t going to do and saying she’d happily take her cancer back if only she could only take Conan’s away…

“I don’t think Conan was processing anything much at that stage.”

An operation was scheduled for mid January.

“We all went with Conan to the theatre doors where we said our goodbyes. We were all very emotional. It was the first time he broke down and I think that made mammy and daddy cry all the more for he’d been so strong up to then,” says Keeley.

But just an hour later they were told the procedure had been stopped. Conan’s temperature had spiked so it was thought too dangerous to open up the brain.

Rescheduled for January 27, only Keeley accompanied her brother to the theatre this time.

“At the theatre doors the porter says, ‘time for your hugs and kisses’ but I poked Conan on shoulder and says, ‘there’ll be no huggin’ and kissin. I’ll see u on other side’,” recalls Keeley.

“But it was longest day ever…”

This time though the surgery was successful and because Conan’s Astrocytoma tumour was grade two he didn’t need follow-up chemo or radiotherapy but does have regular scans.

Despite the traumatic experience though Keeley says it brought the community together and the family’s been overwhelmed by the money raised at their recent gala night in the Bushtown Hotel, Coleraine.

“It was an awful time but we’d so much support, even from people we never expected, and that’s what got us through. It’s certainly shown me just how important friends and family are.”

Donations can be made via crowdfunder.co.uk/p/fundraiser-for-bowel-cancer-research-and-the-neuroscience-appeal-at-beaumont-hospital