'Had I been driving on the M7, it was all over': Cork man says he is lucky to be alive after scare

When Ivan O’Sullivan wakes up every morning, he thanks his lucky stars that he is alive and well.

After going through brain surgery five years ago, he believes that the universe has been good to him.

“I am here,” says Ivan, of Bartlemy North Cork. “And it took a lot to get there.”

Ivan lived a charmed life growing up on a farm, and went on to earn a Bachelor of Science qualification in geology. But he knows he was lucky to survive surgery to remove a primary brain tumour in the left hemisphere.

“It’s the stuff magic is made of,” says Ivan of his surgery.

Before the trauma of that health scare, he says he was happy-go-lucky, having had an idyllic childhood growing up in the thick of the countryside with his older twin brothers.

“I was a lazy sod!” admits Ivan. “And I was not really a farmer!”

But there was an upside.

“My mother ‘minded’ me well!,” says Ivan. “My dad was older than her, he was 52 when I was born, and he had Parkinson’s disease.”

School days were the happiest days of Ivan’s life.

“I loved school, even though I was lazy!” says Ivan, who suffered from epilepsy from a young age.

“I loved going to school at CBS Midleton. I had pals from the country and pals from the city.”

Working on the farm before pursuing his heart’s passion, Ivan got help from his older brother Ted.

“Ted helped me on the farm. Dad was unwell.”

Ivan was a people person.

“I joined Macra na Feirme and later joined Blarney Toastmasters.”

Ivan met the love of his life there. Did Caroline chat him up?

“She said I was the ‘snobby Area Governor’ in a communion suit!”

The happy couple did up the O’Sullivan farmhouse all set to live happily ever after.

“My parents were both gone,” says Ivan. “I believed that I was never destined to be alone.”

He decided to follow his dream.

“In 2007, I got out of cows,” says Ivan. “I started studying for a degree in geology in UCC as a mature student. It was tough but enjoyable.

“My real passion has always been meteorology. It is my favourite thing. I subsequently studied that subject.

“The stars aligned for me, and I graduated in 2012 with a B.Sc. in geology.”

Caroline must have been proud of her husband?

“She was very proud,” says Ivan. “It was a great achievement.”

His siblings were proud of their brother too.

“Ted said, ‘Well done you, boy!”

However, the spectre of Ivan’s epilepsy lurked in the background.

“It provided a bit of a barrier for me employment-wise,” he admits.

Did he realise when an episode was in the offing?

“You know it’s coming,” says Ivan, who was epilepsy-free for a relatively long time. “I’d just go with it and bite my tongue.”

He was working for the Brothers of Charity in Fermoy when he left work earlier than usual one evening.

“I was with the staff,” says Ivan. “The lads were in bed. Somebody else was coming on duty and I was told to head home. I remember it was a very hot day in June, 2019.”

Approaching Rathcormac on the way home, he felt queasy. He thought he was getting an epileptic fit.

“I stopped on the side of the road and pulled back my feet,” says Ivan. “You have to let yourself go.”

“I woke up and, in this state, I realised I had ‘hit a wall’.”

He heard voices.

“I heard, ‘Ivan, Ivan’. The guards were there, the fire brigade was there. A neighbour arrived.”

Caroline arrived too.

Despite suffering a serious health episode, the universe had looked out for Ivan in ensuring he was safe on the side of the road. So had his mother.

“That was my thought exactly,” says Ivan. “My mother was still minding me.”

He thought about what might have been.

“Had I been driving on the M7, it was all over.”

In CUH, Ivan went through a series of tests.

“When a scan showed up a mass on my brain, we were shocked,” he says.

“I had no symptoms. No headaches for instance.”

He was in a safe pair of hands.

“There was a young neurologist in the hospital,” says Ivan. “He was on the ball, and he detected the mass.”

Ivan was admitted to the epilepsy ward in CUH.

“There were four people in the ward,” he says. “The patients were being monitored 24/7. There was a patient in the ward who got fits every hour. I had worked with people like that. I felt sorry for them.”

Mr Kamel Mahmoud, lead neurologist, had seen Ivan’s biopsy and declared the tumour was operable.

“The two-and-a-half-hour surgery in my temple area got rid of the mass,” says Ivan. “It was level 2.”

The stars had aligned for Ivan yet again.

“If the tumour was level 3, surgery would prove very risky,” says Ivan. “I woke up. I was positive.”

Caroline was by his side.

“As a young nurse, Caroline had assisted during brain surgeries,” says Ivan. “She had seen it all and she knew what was at stake.”

Little things were significant after Ivan’s brain surgery.

“The nurse came in to me and said ‘Hello, Ivan’. She asked where we were? What date was it? She wrote everything down. My surgeon was very pleased. Dr Banbury, a medical oncologist, was happy too.”

In order to be sure there was nothing hiding or remaining in Ivan’s brain, chemotherapy and radiation treatment were necessary.

“Wearing a custom-made radiation mask made of plastic was necessary to have the radiation treatment,” says Ivan.

“At first it felt claustrophobic, but after a while I used to nod off.

“The doctors offered to take a bit off the mask, but I knew there would be an end to it, just like there was a beginning.”

Going through gruelling treatment to quell any more cancerous bodies in his brain, Ivan bonded with his fellow patients receiving chemotherapy treatment.

What did Ivan think about during his cancer treatment?

“I thought of a happier place,” he says.

He thought of the place he met his wife.

“I thought about giving a speech in Toastmasters.”

When an incision in Ivan’s brain resulted in observing no change, bar some scar tissue, all the medics were happy.

However, the recovery proved very slow and the worst was yet to come.

“I was in turmoil,” Ivan says. “I wanted to sleep all the time. In 2023, I never worked. My GP in Fermoy referred me to Dr Maeve Durkin, an oncologist in the Bons.

“She admitted me to hospital to be assessed. I was run-down. I could only sleep. My immune system was lower than low. I literally crashed from all the treatments. Dr Durkin built me up again.”

Ivan got a wake-up call.

“One morning, I heard planes taking off from Cork Airport. It gave me the incentive to think about a getaway.”

Dr Durkin decided Ivan could go home soon. There was something more pressing in Ivan’s head.

“The local and European elections were on. I couldn’t possibly miss those!”

Ivan, intent on not missing out on life, has got his mojo back.

“I want to contribute to society,” he says.

He’s taking his wife away for a holiday in May.

“I was very lucky,” says Ivan. “I make sure to attend all my regular medical check-ups.

“To think that was all in July five years ago. Look at me now.”