The Choice

by Bernadette Bohan

  I had an hour or so to kill before my slot, so I wandered around the show marvelling at the number of different health products on offer. I watched some people having reiki massages, saw others having their auras photographed and still others lying with moxibustion candles in their ears. Some of what I saw seemed pretty weird, and I was glad I did not have to explain anything more difficult than simple nutritional facts.

  Suddenly I heard an announcement over the loudspeaker system: Bernadette Bohan’s talk CHANGE A LITTLE – IT HELPS A LOT starts in ten minutes in lecture room 4. This was it – and in an hour it would all be over. I had asked for a small room, not being confident of getting much of an audience, and breathed a sigh of relief on that first day when I saw about thirty-five people dotted around the room waiting for me. I stood behind the table at the top of the room, swallowed hard, and tried to pretend this was just another talk in a school hall. ‘You are all very welcome,’ I began. ‘I am going to talk to you about preventing cancer.’ As usual, once I had started I just got on with it, and found I even enjoyed it. I knew my material so well I was even able to throw in a few jokes. So I got through it, and was pleased with the applause and the genuinely interested questions afterwards. If I can just get through two more days like this, I thought, I’ll be doing fine. Then I can retreat to my life of relative obscurity, giving my little classes, and I won’t venture out to something like this again.

  The next day the number had doubled in my little room. I saw that there were a few people from the previous day’s talk back again. That gave me a boost, and it was nice to be able to smile at a few friendly faces while giving my talk. Again, I felt it went down well and people were terribly kind and complimentary afterwards. Several people commented on how ‘do-able’ it all was. ‘Of course it is,’ I said. ‘I had an eighteen-year-old going through exams, a sixteen-year-old going through puberty and a five-year-old starting school – and I was going through chemotherapy and radiotherapy at the same time. If I can do it, anyone can!’

  I was just patting myself on the back for getting through it a second time, when a smartly dressed man who had been at the back of the room approached me. ‘You have given me so much hope,’ was all he said. He had tears in his eyes. It was for people like him that I was putting myself through this, I realized. How I wished I could tell my mother what I was doing.

  ‘I think you’ll need a larger room tomorrow,’ said one of the organizers as I was packing up my things. ‘Oh no,’ I begged him. ‘This one will do just fine.’ ‘Well, all right,’ he agreed, ‘but I’ll bring in more chairs just in case.’

  Over breakfast the next day I announced to the family: ‘I think I’ll be confident enough today to come out from behind that table. It’s been much easier than I thought, and people are so receptive.’ But later on that day when I breezed up the stairs to deliver my talk I had to edge my way through a crowd of people blocking the corridor. My heart sank – I’d only be getting a few people today if there was another popular speaker. Never mind, I’d be finished soon, no harm done.

  ‘Who are you all queuing for?’ I asked one elderly lady.

  ‘Bernadette Bohan,’ came the astonishing reply. And sure enough, there was my room with a long line of people waiting to go in. I squeezed through the door to find a packed room with people crushed into the aisles on extra chairs, and many sitting on the window sills. Several people stood at the back, and I heard later that they had to turn people away. There was a rustle of excitement as I made my way to the front of the room. I could forget about the table, there was hardly any space for me to move. All eyes were on me. ‘Jesus, Mary Mother of God,’ I muttered. ‘Make me do this right for them.’ The room fell silent as I started to speak. I now felt I knew exactly what to say, and how to say it; I believed they were listening and that what I was saying made sense.

  ‘These few do-able changes will go a long way to improving your health.’ I was coming to the end of my talk. ‘Good health is about taking responsibility for yourself and informing and educating ourselves on what we put in our mouths and use on our bodies. But I hope what I have told you today will inspire you to start to make some of these simple changes in your own life. It’s not rocket science, and you can do it in your own kitchen.’

  The applause was deafening, and many people rushed up to see me afterwards. So many people wanted to talk to me, to ask me specific questions about what they should do for themselves or their loved ones, and to know where they could find out more. Their need for information and reassurance was palpable – each person clearly had an urgent desire for help – and I knew I had only started to scratch the surface. I wished I could sit down individually with each of them, and I cursed myself for not even having prepared a hand-out to give them.

  The last person to leave was a woman in her thirties with a kind face and soft grey eyes. I recognized her – she had been in the audience the day before. ‘I just had to come back,’ she explained. ‘I have learnt more from you in one day than I learnt from all the guys with the PhDs – I used to sit through boring seminars while I was training to be a nurse and couldn’t wait to leave. But what you are saying makes perfect sense.’ This woman later came to my classes, and like many she writes to me regularly to let me know how she is progressing. She always signs herself ‘Your No. 1 Fan’.

  I was completely exhausted after these three days and was looking forward to a few days’ rest before starting my classes again. Ger took me out for dinner that night to celebrate.

  ‘What next then, Bernie?’ he asked. ‘Today, the RDS Dublin – tomorrow, what? How are you going to top this?’

  ‘I don’t know. I was asked if I’d do the show next year – with a bigger room, and I said I’d do the show, but I wasn’t sure about the bigger room.’

  ‘Oh, go for it. Anyway, you’ve plenty of time to think about it.’

  ‘OK. But I’ll need to have a proper leaflet to give people. I wonder if I need an e-mail address or a website? People kept asking me if they could contact me.’

  ‘I’d just keep it simple for now if I were you.’

  We were to find out ‘what next’ the following day. I had a call from the TV station Ireland AM. She had heard about my talks at ‘Your Health’ and wanted me to appear the following week on the breakfast show to talk about what she called my ‘system for beating cancer’. Television! This was starting to get serious – I felt panicky. A million questions rushed through my mind. What time? What will I wear? Will I bring anything with me?

  ‘Are you selling or promoting anything?’ she asked.

  I was aghast. ‘Of course not!’

  ‘In that case we can pay you 64 euros.’

  I laughed to myself. Not only was I getting an opportunity to appear on television but I was getting paid as well – be it ever so small. She was apologetic, but explained that the people they usually had on their programme tended to be promoting a product or a service, so their telephone numbers and e-mail address or website would be flashed up on the screen at the end of the slot. ‘Well, you don’t need to do that for me as I have nothing to sell – I just want to tell people how to make these simple changes. I guess I’m not your regular kind of guest.’ We agreed on a date, and she told me where the studio was, and what time to arrive.

  ‘Ger!’ I yelled, as I put the phone down. ‘Help!’

  If I had been nervous for the health show I was out of my mind with terror now. I questioned everyone I knew for any tips they might have on how to behave, where to look (The presenter? The cameras? The basket of fruit, my only prop?), what colours to wear … the only thing I wasn’t worried about was what to say.

  In the reception room next door to the TV studio just before I was due to go on air I asked one of the researchers what I was to expect. ‘Oh, the presenter will ask you a few questions. Just act natural. OK, the news is just finishing. You’re on now – follow me.’ Clearly I was light relief in between news flashes. Off I went, best foot forward.

 
The presenter that morning asked me, off-camera, if I would talk about chemotherapy. This was a no-no for me. ‘I am not qualified to talk about medical treatments, just my own experience,’ I said. ‘Please, don’t even go there. This is a subject I never give advice on, because I feel strongly that each individual should make this decision for themselves. All I want to do is show people the few simple changes I made in my life.’

  Suddenly he was all smiles. This was it. I took a deep breath and hoped my nervousness would not show. ‘And I’m delighted to introduce Bernadette Bohan,’ he announced to the cameras, ‘health advisor and cancer survivor.’ I was not sure about the label of health advisor, but I launched into my prepared sound bites. ‘Juicing is an easy way to get five to ten raw fruit and veg a day,’ I began, and the thought crossed my mind that I could do this thing blindfold; I had said these words so many times. I concentrated on making it sound fresh and exciting. It was all over very quickly, and I was ushered out to make way for the next guest. As I left, the studio asked if I could give them some answers for some e-mails and calls they had just received. E-mails and calls? I thought. I’ve only just come off the air.

  On my way home I wondered if any of my friends had seen me, and how I had come across.

  ‘Mum!’ cried Sarah as soon as I got home. ‘The phone is hopping!’ I was bewildered. What had happened?

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘Can I take your number? We’ll call you back,’ Sarah was saying. Then she held the phone off the hook to talk to me.

  ‘It’s you! All these people want to speak to you. As soon as you came off the TV the phone started going. I think they called the TV station and they gave them our number.’ She put the phone down and it rang immediately.

  ‘Hello, yes that’s right. Can I take your number? Bernadette will call you back.’

  I sat down heavily on the sofa, hardly comprehending what was happening. I had no idea of the power of a five-minute television slot. Did this happen to everyone? Why hadn’t they warned me? I was glad now that I had an e-mail address – my friend Veronica had set up the account the day before and in the event the TV station had put my e-mail details up on the screen after my slot. I hadn’t allowed them to do the same with my phone number – on Ger’s advice – but they’d still given it to viewers who had called in. This was just as well, as it turned out, as I was able to help so many.

  ‘I’ll man the phone, Sarah. Can you run up and check the e-mails for me?’

  ‘Sure. You were great, by the way.’

  For the next two hours I was on the phone non-stop to people who had seen the breakfast show and wanted to know more. Some of them were sick, and all of them wanted to talk. I had to be strong and not get into involved conversations, promising caller after caller that I’d take their number and call them back. Sarah reappeared.

  ‘E-mails are arriving every few minutes,’ she reported. ‘There are loads of them already. What shall I do with them?’ I put my head in my hands.

  ‘Look, let’s have a break,’ I said. ‘I need to feed Julie – the poor little lass has just been pottering around quietly while all this has been going on. I think she needs a bit of normality.’ I took the phone off the hook and we had tea. I was worried about the e-mails: it was all very well having an e-mail address, but I didn’t know one end of a computer from the other and I couldn’t type. How was I going to reply to them all? In the end we decided that Sarah would print them, I would scribble replies on the hard copies, and she would type them up and send them off. I was relieved at this solution and agreed to pay her a few bob for helping me out – I knew it would take her some time to get through all of them.

  After Julie was in bed I tentatively put the phone back down, and immediately it rang. The answerphone seemed to be jammed. I lost count of the number of calls I fielded, but I was there for hours. I stopped for a while when Ger came home, and I could see he was both pleased and a bit put out that I was so preoccupied.

  ‘It will quieten down tomorrow, I expect,’ he said confidently.

  It didn’t. The next day I was on the phone for seven hours, and wrote around fifty e-mails for Sarah to send. That night we debated whether to install a new, dedicated phone line, and decided not to, at least for the time being. For three nights Sarah was up until 2am working on the hundreds of e-mails – she was amazing, and I could see how touched she was by some of the stories that were coming through. We had to take the phone off the hook in order to sleep, eat and talk. Richard helped me with Julie so I could be free to take the calls. There were times when I had to remind myself that I had to look after myself: I needed to rest, I needed to eat properly. We had been totally unprepared for this and it was overwhelming. People were asking for more – an information pack, a video, a book, water filters, juicers, sprouting kits. ‘I’m not a business,’ I kept protesting. ‘I’m just telling people how I made myself well after cancer.’

  The researcher was on the line again. ‘We have had a massive response,’ she said excitedly, and admitted that they had been completely taken aback by the amount of calls. ‘You certainly captured their interest. We’d like you to come back and do six more slots.’

  I knew I wanted to do this. This was a great opportunity, and it was the best way of reaching more people. Next time I would set myself up so as to be able to respond better to queries. We decided I would do one slot every three weeks for the next few months, which would take me up until the following April.

  Meanwhile my classes continued, and I found I was booking people in for months ahead. However, there were so many new people that I had to re-jig my waiting lists and see the sick people first: I couldn’t possibly make someone with cancer wait two months – it was imperative that they discovered what they could do to help themselves immediately. I had to pace myself to cope with the increased demand, and sadly I was no longer able to see people one-to-one. Letters were still flooding in, and it was so heartening for me to have these daily reminders that people felt I had genuinely helped them. I was getting stories of tumours regressing, scans being clear, bloods improving (a clear indicator of health). One of these was Susie Halpin. She was suffering from ovarian cancer that had spread to her lung, and after two full treatments of chemotherapy had been told by her oncologists that there was no guarantee that she would not need more treatment. Her daughter saw me on television and contacted me on her mother’s behalf, after which her husband John travelled a hundred miles to take my classes and find out what he could do to support her. She wrote recently to tell me that they were headlong into my health plan:

  ‘John has lost 2 stone: he is like a new man and says you are a breath of fresh air. I’m doing very well at the moment, my bloods are excellent and the doctors are very pleased with me. Thank God I’m happy again, and thank you for watching out for me, and for being there for me when I was frightened.’

  Over the years I have become close to many people like Susie, corresponding with them, talking with them on the phone, living through the stages of their illnesses with them. I feel blessed to have made so many new friends. It embarrasses me to be given presents, and to be called an ‘angel’, but I understand their very human need for reassurance and information. Not all survive, it is true; but if they have gained extra time from following my advice then I feel I have done a little for them. I give out a lot of myself, I realize, but I get it back one thousand fold.

  I still see my oncologist, and at my last appointment he didn’t ask me how I was, he asked me what I was up to. I laughed. I had told him only a little about the changes I had made to my life: with his traditional medical views he would, I feared, pour scorn on what I was doing. I knew full well that he regarded me as one of his success stories. It amused me to think that he had heard about my television appearances and was unsettled by what I was advising people to do. ‘When this book comes out I will say that I believe it was the chemo that saved you,’ he declared, a little pompously. ‘I never said it wasn’t,’ I rep
lied, smiling. One day I may tell him that doctors now recommend my classes to their patients.

  My family is now more accepting of the lifestyle I have chosen, and although I allow them a small weekly ration of three pizzas, one packet of biscuits and one carton of orange juice (I wear dark glasses to buy them!), they do at least have some understanding of the principles I am following. Julie has taken the rollercoaster of the past few years in her stride, and her teacher recently told me that she is now more than able to keep up with the rest of the class. I’m so proud of her.

  My brother-in-law, Tony, is a librarian, and he had been on at me for a couple of years to write a book about my experiences. ‘I wouldn’t know where to start!’ I would always protest. But then more and more people were asking me if I was going to write a book, and I realized that this was the logical next step. It would also be wonderful to have something tangible to give out to people, although I couldn’t for the life of me imagine how I might do it. Eventually I sent a few pages to a publisher.

  To my surprise they accepted it, and here it is: my life in paperback. It has had its sad moments, but thankfully it has a happy ending.