Mary Flynn’s long standing relationship with surgery in Beaumont Hospital began in May 1992 when she was fifty-nine. A widow and mother of ten children, she spent a year and a half travelling to Sligo Hospital for dialysis before she received the news of a kidney donation. Her first transplant operation went well, however the donated kidney did not function well and Mary was put back on dialysis and back on the kidney donor list to await another suitable kidney.

In January 1993, she had her second transplant which was a great success and life got back to normal for Mary until pains in her stomach revealed that she had developed gall stones. She had two separate surgeries in 2002, one to remove the gall stones and 6 weeks later, a second operation in which her gall bladder was removed.

In 2006 she underwent surgery for bowel cancer in which a large part of her colon was removed and in subsequent years had open heart surgery to replace an aortic valve and a second surgery following this to insert a pacemaker.

Now eighty-four, Mary wanted to do a sky dive to raise funds for the hospital but was advised against it by her doctor! Instead, she organised a charity head shave and event in 2016 in which she had her head totally shaved in the community hall, raising €5,815 for the Renal Unit and the Irish Kidney Association. In addition, for the last three years Mary has been named Slimmer of the Year in her local Slimming World class after dropping 7.5 stones in the last six years.

Honour Your Heroes Award

Mary thanked Monica Cunningham of St Damien’s Ward for the care and friendship she has provided to Mary over the years. She says, “Through all my health issues down the years, Beaumont Hospital has kept me alive and I can safely say I would not be here otherwise”.