COLIN O’DOHERTY looks as fit and lean as a cross-country runner, but some days he is in such excruciating pain he just wants to die.
There are times when he even wishes he had cancer because at least then he would get some sympathy and understanding, but the great paradox of his condition is that despite being trapped in a cycle of crippling pain, he looks perfectly healthy.
For the past nine years, O’Doherty (36) has suffered from chronic pain, a long-term condition which is a disease in its own right. He has a Degree in Engineering and a Masters in Law, but cannot work due to his condition, which has left him virtually housebound.
“If people around you understood, it wouldn’t be as bad. You would still be in pain, but if there was more understanding, it would not be so bad. People think that if you were in that much pain, you would be horizontal and hooked up to machines, but I look perfectly normal even though the pain I’m in is crazy.”
A gifted sportsman from a family of All-Ireland senior medal winners, Colin from Douglas, Co Cork, had great prospects of playing in Croke Park himself one day, but at the age of 19, those hopes were shattered when he was diagnosed with the autoimmune disease, sarcoidosis.
However, this disease appeared to have burnt itself out by the time Colin was 26, and he got straight back into training as soon as he felt well enough. A year later, out of the blue he started to develop what his doctors initially thought were severe symptoms of the sarcoidosis, but was eventually diagnosed as severe chronic pain.
He explains: “I was now an absolute cripple, but without a proper label to affix to my symptoms, nobody wanted to know. They would understand if I had MS or cancer. People said, ‘If you were in so much pain, you would be on morphine’, but they won’t give morphine to people like me because I have a chronic illness and would become a junkie.
“I ended up withdrawing from friends and family and leaving them behind, which is not uncommon in people with chronic pain. To this day, I am estranged from members of my family and I’m ultimately left with a couple of people who have an innate understanding of the disorder, my mother and my partner. I have had counselling to try to come to terms with this. Unfortunately for me, I don’t want sympathy, I want understanding.”
These days, Colin lives between his parents’ home and the home of his partner. He spends a lot of his days lying down reading as this is the least painful position for him, and when he feels up to it he spends time researching his condition on his laptop.
MICHELLE McDONAGH
