By Rachel Kavanagh
A FORMER sunbed user has spoken out about the dangers they pose after once having her own funeral planned as a result of a cancer diagnosis. Shirley McEntee, a 51-year-old retired paramedic from Galway, is a skin cancer survivor who has battled with cancer for decades as a result of using sunbeds as a teenager. To this day, Shirley has days where she “can’t leave the bed” as melanoma has affected her brain, ovaries, lungs and skin over the last 20 years. READ MORE: Limerick boy, 14, ‘humped’ girl from behind at popular swimming spot, court hears She said sunbeds have completely destroyed her life. Shirley’s words come in a week the Taoiseach Michéal Martin said banning sunbeds in Ireland would be a”no-brainer”. His comments came amid a HSE report which concluded the number of skin cancer cases diagnosed in Ireland is “rising rapidly.” Shirley McEntee has stepped forward to tell her story, warning others of the extreme risks and dangers of using sunbeds which are still popular in Ireland. In a stark warning, she recalls her first diagnosis and leaving the hospital with her right side paralysed after having a brain tumour removed in 2013. She also had her ovaries removed and the left side of her lungs. Shirley said one of the most heart breaking aspects of her battles with cancer was having to break the news over and over again to her family who were with her every step of the way as the cancer would return again and again. Shirley said she was about 19 years of age when she started using sunbeds over 30 years ago, a decision that has affected her life to this day. “Everyone wanted a tan and these sunbeds came out, I just said ‘ah well I might as well give it a go’.” Shirley said that she got addicted to them and was using sunbeds three or four times a week. “No one really knew the dangers of them. My mam went on them, everyone I knew went on them, but I’m a red-haired woman, a freckled white skin woman, and I thought oh sure I’ll get off after my first ten sessions.” “I’ll come out like Beyonce!” Shirley thought. “Sure, I came out like a Honda 50! Red stripes, white stripes, I actually got physically sick a few times but it didn’t matter!”. Shirley said that she thought they would work eventually and just kept going on them. She ended up with very bad burning on her chest and her shoulders that “were pure red” and this made her then stop using the sunbeds. Shirley went back on the sunbeds once in 2004 when she was 30 years old until her mam’s friend spotted a black freckle on her shoulder while they were on holidays. When she got the freckle checked out, the doctors discovered it was a skin cancer called melanoma which she then had to get removed. Shirley said she didn’t even know what melanoma was at that stage but it led her to go through three operations at the time while she was working as a paramedic in Limerick. Shirley forgot about the skin cancer once the mole was removed, until she started getting sick again in 2009. One night while Shirley was working, she brought herself to A&E because she didn’t feel right. The doctors discovered a mass on her lung as a result of the melanoma she was diagnosed with in previous years. This started Shirley’s long battle with illness as her cancer came and went in multiple parts in her body. Half of Shirley’s lung was removed after the mass discovery and she said “it was horrendous…they had to break a couple ribs to get in and it took a while to recover.” Shirley was determined to still work during these times, and continued working as a Limerick paramedic for another year until the cancer had then spread to her adrenal glands and ovaries which then had to be removed. Shirley was put on a drug called interferon for a year which she says was possibly the worst drug she had ever been on in her life. It caused her hair to fall out and nails to fall off and dried out her skin completely and made her exhausted. Shirley said she would have to take this drug while she was still working at the same time. “I’d give it to myself if I was working a 12 to 12 and then I’d have to take the next day off. It was just so horrible…I was constantly cold. I went home for Christmas and I just didn’t feel right.” On New Year’s Day of 2011, Shirley felt a lump on her throat the size of a tennis ball, just six weeks after her previous operation. Shirley had throat cancer and then in her other ovary as well. The doctor told her it was impossible to control the cancer at that point as it kept coming back quicker and quicker. During her next appointment, the doctor told her she only had six months to live but recommended a drug to her that was new to the market. Ipilummab was the name of the drug Shirley was taking as well as undergoing radiotherapy on her neck to treat her throat cancer. “All my neck inside was all ripped. I couldn’t eat. I could only really drink water and milk.” READ MORE: ‘Viable bomb’ at Russian-owned Limerick site treated as potential war revenge attack Later, Shirley was told good news…her cancer was all cleared. She said her father nearly fainted and her mother was screaming at the news. Shirley couldn’t believe her ears….”I was delighted but I didn’t believe them.” In 2013, Shirley said she went to the doctors after feeling very strange again. She discovered that her melanoma cancer had spread to her brain and she had a 5mm brain tumour on the left side of her brain. “It killed me, telling people, your family, breaking their hearts again and again and again.” Shirley had a surgery to get the tumour removed and when she woke up, she was paralysed down the right side of her body. Shirley was determined not to leave the hospital in a wheelchair and walked out on crutches. Shirley had to retire after this and leave her house that she had paid a mortgage on following her brain surgery. “I couldn’t remember my name sometimes; I had a rough time getting better. My hair was gone, I was on the worst steroids you could imagine; I think they try kill you with them, never mind save you. I was in a lot of pain.” She even had her own funeral arranged at one point, Shirley remembered. Shirley had a shunt put in her brain around this time but this would later cause her more difficulties. “Your shunt is growing into your brain or is damaged and not growing the way it was supposed to,” the doctor told Shirley in 2023 and she got the shunt taken out. Shirley admits she has been living in agony again in the last year and while her scans are clear, her pain hasn’t gone away. Shirley has a carer come to her everyday and she says some days she’s not able to leave the bed. “The only thing I can do is stay at home in bed. I drink a coffee or tea and that could be it for three days. When I think back, the sunbeds really destroyed my life,” she concluded.