Like so many of those stories about the unfolding of serious illness, Larry Tompkins’s began with something trivial. As soon as you hear the opening disclosure, a sense of unease enters the conversation, recognisable from countless and various narratives.
“I suppose it starts as little things and that’s why people should always be wary of maybe a little bit of a niggle or a little bit of a pain somewhere, but you know, I got a little bit of a pain, kind of in towards my ribs.
“I remember – maybe it’s going on three years ago now – it started off like a little annoying pain and just developed then after not seeing anyone, maybe for the guts of nine or 10 months then, I went to see a specialist.”
That began the process of ultimately detecting a rare cancer, a tumour on his lung. Initially, the fear was that a career in construction as a carpenter had exposed him to asbestos, which may have compromised the lungs.
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A succession of scopes and investigations ruled that out as a potential problem. So, he got the ‘all clear’ but it proved no happy ever after. Still feeling out of sorts and knowing in his heart of hearts that whatever the problem was, it hadn’t gone away, there was nothing to be done but restart the process.
“I wasn’t happy with it, so I went back then to the specialist and he hospitalised me to see could he get to the bottom of it. Last November, I went into hospital and they discovered then that I had a tumour on the wall of my lung and that my lung was leaking and full of fluid.
“I was a bit annoyed that it wasn’t caught a bit sooner. I had to get another consultant then, I changed over to a thoracic person that he looked after me then, a Limerick man, a good GAA man.”
This mention of the GAA clicks into why Larry Tompkins is so familiar and well known within those circles. Already quite a big name with Kildare in the 1980s, he fell out with the county over expenses due for commuting from the US.
While there he met the Collinses from west Cork and they prevailed on him to come back for a summer with them and play for their home club, Castlehaven. It was meant to be for a few months but he ended up settling in the county and captaining the club to its first county title in 1989 before accepting the call-up from Billy Morgan to join the Cork footballers.
An All Star for each of the initial three years in which they ended the Mick O’Dwyer era and claimed a first All-Ireland in 16 years, he captained the team in 1990, Cork’s first back-to-back football titles and realising a double for the county after the hurlers’ success a fortnight previously.
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A wonderful dead-ball kicker – he dragged Cork to replays twice in 1987 – Tompkins was also a great footballer with the priceless accessories of physical hardness and striking athleticism. He went on to manage his adopted county to the 1999 All-Ireland final, which was lost to Meath.
The bad news 25 years later was that a few weeks after being given the ‘all clear’ he was informed that he had, “cancer on the wall of the lung and it was a very rare cancer. Believe it or not, one in five million, I could be the only one in Ireland that might have it.”
At least with the diagnosis came treatment but harsh, attritional days followed as his body became a battleground between the tumour and prescribed therapies. “I spent three months in hospital. There were stages when I just felt that I wasn’t going to come through.”
Then, almost miraculously, came the realisation that the tumour had stopped growing and hadn’t spread. His case had been referred to the Brompton hospital in London.
“The top people in London, I was talking to over on Zoom, they couldn’t believe that my tumour hadn’t spread.”
The left lung is now “dead” despite three operations to revitalise it and with just one lung operating, “breathing can be a problem” but he walks regularly, slowly recuperating.
Now 62, he takes life now a little at a time, recently able to mow the lawn once again. Small victories, pieced together in a trend finally going in the right direction.
Inducted into the Gaelic Writers’ Association Football Hall of Fame, supported by Dalata Hotel Group, last Friday, when he was able to meet young and not-so-young reporters, who knew him from a time when they could talk more easily to players and managers, years when he was one of most courteous and helpful of interviewees.
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He is optimistic for the future. “Hopefully, as I said, we can keep it contained. I’ll have to live with it and hopefully I can get another 20 years anyway, please God.”
Looking forward to last week’s GWA dinner, he said: “After a tough year, it’ll be nice. My family will be up there because we haven’t had really a gathering or going out because I have been so sick in the last 12 months, but please God, you know, I’m getting a bit better now and able to get around a bit better.”
His ferocious competitiveness still taking the biggest contest to extra time.
