Eddie Connolly strode onto the pitch at O'Moore Park in Portlaoise, started kicking a ball and 20 minutes later, for the first time in six months, he felt a burn.
"I had made two or three runs," he smiles. "And the burn spread right across my chest. It was bloody brilliant."
That was at the beginning of May. A week earlier, Connolly had taken a phone call from Richard Poole from Portlaoise who was looking for cancer patients to play in a charity football match organised by former patients of St Luke's and St James's Hospitals. On match day Connolly walked into the St Luke's dressing room, greeted his manager Brian Cody, and felt like he belonged again.
"Every player there: Martin McGrath, Joe Deane, John McGrath, they had all suffered cancer in some form. The difference was I was the only player still receiving treatment," Connolly added. "I was due in for chemo the next day. The others were looking at me as if I had two heads."
Spend even a few minutes in Connolly's company, however, and you won't be surprised at anything he does. A born winner and competitor, he carved out a serious reputation as a hurler and footballer for both Tipperary and his club Loughmore-Castleiney, winning dual county minor titles in 2002 and building from there with a succession of teams.
As Tipperary play Limerick in the Munster championship opener this afternoon, Connolly still holds onto the dream that he could make the squad again. In 2011, the tenacious defender was drafted onto the senior hurling panel by Declan Ryan and also figured for John Evans' footballers in the Kerryman's last year in charge.
In 2012, he captained Tipperary to the All-Ireland intermediate hurling final and then set about reclaiming his place in the senior set-up. As recently as last October he looked right on course. Loughmore were pushing hard on two fronts, en route to an historic double of hurling and football titles. The same 15 players were more or less the team's backbone in both codes and Connolly was impressing every weekend.
It was only in the latter stages of their county hurling quarter-final against Borris-Ileigh that his dream season turned to devastation. With 10 minutes to go, a high ball was lobbed in around the square and Connolly lost his man, Brendan Maher, who rose above him to flick the ball home. "I just blanked for a second," Connolly recalls. "I lost the ball but worse still I lost Brendan and that was just not me. I never ever lost the man."
They won, but he walked off the field with a thumping pain in his head. He took a shower, asked the team physio for two Nurofen and headed back to the stands to watch Nenagh éire óg and Kildangan in the other quarter-final. But he could neither focus, nor follow the ball. Somehow, with his vision blurred, he lasted until five minutes before the end before asking a team-mate to drive his car home. "I spent the entire journey concentrating on not getting sick in my car. At home, though, I vomited violently four or five times. You know how you often feel better after getting sick? Well, I actually felt worse."
His family knew something wasn't right. Eddie's sister Fiona, a physical therapist, brought him to Shannondoc. From there he was switched to South Tipperary General Hospital, Clonmel and put on a drip, but his condition deteriorated. The doctors saw the scratches on his arm and wondered if he had meningitis. They forgot he was a hurler, just after a championship match. The scratches were merely wounds of battle.
"By then, though, I was in a critical condition and rushed to Cork. There was a drip in my arm and any time I moved a machine would beep and drive me mad. The pain in my head was unreal; I couldn't hold my arm still, so it kept beeping. I remember roaring at the poor nurses to take the fucking thing off me."
He was stabilised, told that a shadow on his brain had been detected and that surgery was required. But he spent the next 10 days waiting for the operation. "I was waiting and fasting; losing weight. I was on a list and absolutely pissed off. It was the Saturday week before the county final and I said I was off home if they didn't have a place for me in the theatre. My sisters were down visiting and I insisted on going home with them. Fifteen minutes before they left, I was called to theatre. I was delighted."
Connolly remembers being asked a flurry of questions when he woke up, but the only thing he could mutter was that he was starving. He asked for toast and when the nurses came in to check on him an hour later he was on his feet heading towards the toilet. The nurses were aghast and tried to whoosh him back to bed. A tumour the size of a golf ball had been cut out of his head; the surgeons had taken as much as they could without affecting the brain, but as far as Connolly was concerned the recovery had started.
"I was lucky," he says frankly. "I had the tumour on the front right. If it happened on the front left, where all the movement and reflexes are centred, I could kiss goodbye to sport or hurling and football again. So I just got up and at it. I don't feel sorry for myself; there are people in way worse situations than me. I was lucky to be so dehydrated in the match, that the pain was so intense, because it meant the condition was detected early. Imagine if I didn't play sport? The tumour could have festered for another six months."
It hit his family and the locality hard, but typically the GAA fraternity rallied around. Connolly received get-well cards from every corner of the country. A Mass was held for him and the parish priest visited him in hospital and jokingly scolded him because they had run out of Communion that evening. On the Tuesday after the operation, he was released from hospital and tipped up to Templetuohy to watch Loughmore train. There, on a bitterly cold night, he was warmly welcomed back and embraced by his team-mates. It was an emotional reunion.
He hoped to watch them win a county title but the day before they played Nenagh he woke up with another blinding headache. He tried to force some breakfast down, but couldn't. The thoughts of missing the final filled him with fear so he tried to tough it out. The pain, though, was too severe. With his vision again blurred it was straight back to Cork. The diagnosis was swift – a build-up of fluid was causing increased pressure.
He made do with following the county final on Twitter; watching deferred highlights on TG4 with his brother and sister-in-law. On the Monday he asked to go home and was told he could, but to summon his parents down first. The news, he sensed, couldn't have been great.
"There was just silence inside the doctor's office when the tumour was said to be cancerous. I just remember one line – 'it won't go away on its own, but it won't spread'. In the car on the way home there was nothing but silence. It was just like: fuck it."
That evening he hooked up with his team-mates, by now deep in celebration mode following their win over Nenagh. In need of a pint, Connolly joined them, relaying the news and explaining how treatment would be required for the next nine months. It hit them hard, but as the initial shock sunk in, a player from a rival club approached Connolly. "Eddie," the opponent said. "If I could pick one lad to fight this it would be you. You are the one mentally strong enough to beat this."
He decided to undergo chemo and radiotherapy in Dublin where he had lived since he was 18, having studied architecture at DIT before joining AIB Head Office and working his way up to assistant manager.
"I love it up in Dublin; I'm living with three lads from home – Derek Burke, Paul McGrath and Kieran McGrath – and one fella from Laois and we actually have three cars going up and down home for training so I had plenty of help and support."
He underwent six weeks of combined chemo and radiotherapy, five days a week, before taking a break for Christmas. Only twice did he have to take the bus to St Luke's Hospital. Everywhere he turned a friend or neighbour from home was waiting with a car, ready to ferry him over and back. The treatment knocked him for six and lying flat on a table for 10 minutes at a time with a mask on his face was the worst part.
"I described it as a really bad helmet," he laughs. "It was beat into me. If you were claustrophobic you were in trouble. I lost my hair as well, but that didn't bother me. I shaved it all off. It's mostly back now."
He got word that his former Tipperary team-mates were organising a 6km run, days before Christmas, and sought to join that run. It's an amazing testament to him that, just seven weeks after having a brain tumour removed, he finished it in 30 minutes.
More importantly, on a dirty day in December, the people of Tipperary showed Connolly their appreciation, with thousands across all age groups turning out in atrocious conditions to run with him and lend their support. Each time he paused for breath, another hurler would urge him on. It galvanised everyone; the players insist that apart from raising funds for North Tipp Hospice it helped bond their team. They hope that unity will prevail when they tackle Limerick this afternoon.
Quietly, it also lifted Connolly. "Just to see so many familiar faces," he smiled. "Just to be back in and around the Tipp boys again . . . it was a big lift." And another step in his recovery. Another step closer to resuming his life and career; to shaping his own destiny.
"You must do whatever you have to do to make your own way. I don't like this 'why me?' attitude," he shrugs. "I have a great fighting chance and hopefully I'm taking it. I never really had dark moments, or broke down at any stage because I had such support."
He's back in the gym since March and already ramping up the free weights. He returned to work with AIB three weeks ago, easing himself in with half days. He wants to climb the career ladder further and once he gets a clean bill of health has that marked down as a priority.
"Playing the GAA charity match was another milestone," he reckons. "There is an incredible video from that game with stories of life after cancer. People can find it on YouTube or by hitting www.charitygaamatch.com. It will inspire others. For me, it was just brilliant getting back to play. But I've been getting boosts like that all along."
None more so than when Mickey Harte came to visit him last November. "I got great encouragement off Mickey and to see how he dealt with my parents who, like him, are very spiritual, was unreal. Mickey gave me a card with a prayer and when he later came down to present Loughmore with our medals another thing he said stuck in my mind. 'Tomorrow is another day'. Mickey's right – if I ever have a bad day tomorrow is another. And I always try to be better tomorrow."
All going well, and if the doctors agree, he'll be back hurling in five to six weeks. In 2013, before he went on the hunt for those two county senior titles, he had already spent nine months out of action after completely tearing his groin off the bone.
"I'm only a three-month man anyway," he laughs. "I usually only come back in July when the heavy stuff is done. Look, that's the plan – to get back soon. I'm in flying form again. Please God, I can fully recover and they can find a place for me again."
Of course they will. Even though he's not been around he's become their heartbeat.
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