For Christine Gill that’s ‘Misty’.
"As long as I can pet my cat I will be so happy. The type of cat that she is, she loves cuddles,” Christine tells the makers of ‘Brain Doctors’ a new documentary series on Virgin Media One that takes viewers inside the neurosurgery department at Beaumont Hospital.
The remarkable Buncrana woman spoke of her love for ‘Misty’ prior to undergoing a high risk operation to remove tumours from the juncture of her brain and upper cervical spine last October.
"If I can get to move the back of my hand then I will take every minute to pet her,” she says, before going under the knife.
Christine, aged 39, is currently in Beaumont recovering. Having undergone a tracheotomy to help with her breathing she was unable to speak to the ‘Journal’ in person this week.
But she has agreed to share her story to raise awareness of neurofibromatosis (NF), the relatively little known genetic condition she has lived with from girlhood.
Those living with NF can develop tumours anywhere on the central nervous system.
Diagnosed at the age of three, Christine, tells the documentary makers, how she had ‘a great childhood, went to the regular school, [was] sometimes clumsy’.
She loved travelling and lived in Canada and toured the US but in her early 30s her condition deteriorated. Tumours began to affect her spine.
Her sister Hilary, speaking to the ‘Journal’ on Christine’s behalf, said: “Neurofibromatosis means that tumours grow on every nerve ending of her body.
"Seven years ago she had to get one taken off the top of her spine because it was wrapping itself around and crushing her spine and this affected her ability to walk.”
That surgery in 2018 when Christine was 33 left her almost completely paralysed and reliant on a wheelchair for her mobility.
Last year Mr. David O’Brien, a leading neurosurgeon at Beaumont, advised Christine and her family that if they didn’t operate again the tumours would ultimately damage areas of the brain stem responsible for breathing and she might end up on a ventilator.
"This particular one was starting to shut down her speech, her swallow, her breathing. There was no real choice other than going ahead with this procedure,” Hilary confides.
Christine’s mother Tracy, speaking from Beaumont, said: “The complications of the surgery are what would have been coming down the line in 18 months to two years.
"They did look into radiotherapy but they couldn't do it because of the size of the tumour and where it was. Surgery was the only option. Christine knew it was coming and at least this way it was controlled and at the end of the day that tumour is gone.”
Tracy reflects on how her daughter was particularly unlucky in that the NF targeted her spine and brain stem.
"With neurofibromatosis tumours can grow anywhere, wherever there are nerves and the body is covered in nerves. Christine was just very unfortunate they concentrated on her spinal chord,” she says.
The operation, however, went even better than planned.
“She can now actually move her right arm a bit more. She couldn't move anything. So something good did come from it,” Hilary says.
Tracy concurs: “The operation did give her some movement in her right hand but literally she can just about lift it and no more. Hopefully she can get a bit more movement in that.”
Today the priority is to work on Christine’s speech, which has been affected by the tracheotomy. Tracy has been learning to lip read in the interim.
"I can get her most of the time but hopefully, please god, she will get the speech back. I joke with her ‘love, wait until I get my glasses, I can’t hear you,” she says.
Once discharged from Beaumont Christine will spend time at the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dún Laoghaire. With a fair wind she will be back in Buncrana by summer.
Says Tracy: “She was at the NRH before and they worked wonders but she was there for three months. I'll just be happy if she gets back to see the summer in, if it's May or June that would be nice. Hopefully before that.
"We didn't think it was going to be a quick one. We definitely have realised it is a marathon, not a sprint.”
In the documentary Mr. O’Brien speaks of being struck by Christine’s ‘bubble personality’ and watching the film and listening to her loved ones you get the sense of an extraordinary person.
"She is just amazing and I'd like other people to see how amazing she is and what she has gone through and what she is going through. She has taken and accepted it with a smile on her face. She never gives out. It is very hard to explain. She is just one of those people. She has enjoyed such an amazing life. She has travelled, this that and the other, but it has just completely taken over. But I think of how she deals with it and is still smiling at the end,” Hilary marvels.
This chimes with her proud mum Tracy, who says: “Christine is the most positive person any of us know. Even her surgeon and the doctors up here say she is always smiling. She is always getting through it. I don't know how she does it. She has always been a glass half full person. She gets through it.”
Christine agreed to take part in ‘Brain Surgeons’ to raise awareness about NF and the incredible work being done at Beaumont.
"She just wants to raise awareness. She just wants her story to be told. This story needs to be told,” Hilary says.
Christine’s story features in the third episode of the Tyrone Productions series ‘Brain Doctors: Inside Neurosurgery’ which will air on Virgin Media One at 9pm on Wednesday, February 26.
