Fit and active, a senior club footballer, 32 years of age and a new father – Ricky Quillinan was in a good place in the autumn of 2022.
After a couple of great campaigns, his native Ballyfin had suffered an early championship exit and so he accepted an invitation to play a bit of soccer with Towerhill Rovers in Portlaoise.
Then in the space of a couple of minutes one October evening, the life as he knew it changed in an instant.
Training on the astroturf pitch at the Portlaoise Leisure Centre, one moment he was laughing and joking.
The next he jumped to head a ball and collapsed on the ground, initially thinking he’d badly hurt his right knee.
Next thing he knew he was having a “full-blown seizure” on the ground, much to the shock of those with him.
When he came around, he was being attended to by Brian Mulligan, who coincidentally happened to be playing at the same time on a pitch nearby.
Brian is an intensive care nurse and would have played hurling and football against Ricky. An ambulance was called and they headed to A&E.
“A seizure like that could happen for any number of reasons,” explains Ricky now. But after various scans and a transfer to Beaumont in Dublin, the diagnosis became clear. He had a malignant brain tumour.
The shock to him, his wife Aisling, parents Dick and Sally and his wide circle of family and friends was huge. His daughter Elsie was only two months old at the time.
As he says now, “in the blink of an eye, contact sport, driving, work, independence” was all gone.
And yet when he thinks back, there was nothing that pointed towards the serious health situation he was in. “I look back and I can’t pick a single thing. There were zero symptoms.”
Heading that soccer ball meant that the tumour was found then.
He underwent brain surgery, had six intense weeks of radiotherapy followed by 12 months of chemotherapy. He was out of work for almost 16 months.
The radiotherapy was every day for six weeks in St Luke’s in Beaumont. “That was probably the hardest part,” he adds.
“They’d say to you that people who do best have a positive frame of mind, a good support base around them and you can’t wallow in it.
“I’ve great family and friends and I’m lucky I was young and fit. You’d be tired from the travelling but so many friends were great in offering lifts up and down.”
He can’t drive at the moment, never mind play hurling, football or soccer.
But he can run. This Sunday, he’ll toe the line for the Dublin City Marathon, all the while raising money for Breakthrough Cancer Research and the Cuisle Centre in Portlaoise.
Setting a target of €5,000, Ricky has more than smashed that with €16,500 raised so far.
He jokes that if you asked all of the various managers that Ballyfin have had over the years, “they’d probably say that myself and Sean Moore would be the least likely to run a marathon”.
When his chemo finished earlier this year he wasn’t allowed to drive (though that will change once he is 12 month post-operation) but he decided to train for the Dublin marathon.
“After the surgery, I was on steroids and naturally my weight went up. Running is great to clear the head but the first time I went out I ran 600 metres and I was wrecked.
“But like anything, the more you do it, I got better at it. I love training and I imagine this won’t be the last marathon I do.”
He has taken to the roads around Ballyfin, Mountrath, Trumera, Slieve Bloom and in out of Portlaoise. The finish of the Dublin Marathon features a considerable climb – he’s used the hill near the Slieve Bloom hurling pitch as his practice.
When he was in Beaumont, someone said to him that maybe a bus would be going by his house to negate that he’d have to stop driving. “Where I live, a car barely goes by, never mind a bus,” he laughs.
On Sunday in Dublin, he’ll have a right support base out to cheer him on.
“Breakthrough Cancer Research is the leading research charity in Ireland for poor prognosis cancers and 75% of what I raise is going to them.
“The other 25% I’m giving to the Cuisle Centre in Portlaoise. Being local, I was always aware of Cuisle but it’s only when you need them like I did that you realise what a brilliant service they are.”
You can donate to Ricky’s fundraiser here.
