GARRY Minihane went from training five times a week to being barely able to walk from his bedroom to the kitchen after up to 30 blood clots on his lung left him lucky to be alive.
One in four die from blood clots and Garry was put on immediate treatment to help prevent any more from developing. (Photo: Shutterstock)
The well-known Skibbereen man who is a paramedic with the National Ambulance Service began to feel out of breath while on holiday with his wife Trish in October 2023.
‘I put it down to what I thought was a lack of fitness as I hadn’t done much training since completing an Ironman a few months before this. I remember I was also extremely and inexplicably tired on the last three days of the holiday,’ said Gary.
The shortness of breath continued when he returned home on Sunday, and by that Tuesday the father-of-two was feeling very unwell.
‘My breathing was very erratic and then I got this stabbing pain from the bottom of my ribs right up to my shoulder, followed by what felt like bullets going through my heart. I was home alone and I knew something was seriously wrong so I drove myself to Bantry General Hospital,’ he said.
Garry, who can hardly remember making the journey, fell in the door of the hospital and within minutes was in its intensive care unit.
Tests showed that clots in his lungs were 20 times the acceptable level.
‘After more tests the consultant came back and told me that my lungs were full of clots. I was very ill, and on morphine for the pain. A scan showed strain to the heart because of the pressure, and I also had a partial collapse of my left lung,’ he said.
One in four die from blood clots and Garry was put on immediate treatment to help prevent any more from developing, and to prevent the existing ones from moving.
‘I was stabilised and was back home after five days, but I had been told that I was basically a walking time bomb and I was to move very little,’ he said.
In any case, he was barely able to walk from his bed to the kitchen and he was so wiped of energy that he could only stay up for very short periods.
There was more to come: three weeks later he suffered another collapse at home.
‘The electrical system in my heart started playing up – it was beating four to five times faster than it should. I actually thought I was dead the night it happened. This time my wife and kids were home. I have a defibrillator at home due to my work and my son went so far as to get it out, and had the pads on me, before two ambulances arrived,’ he remembers.
He was taken back to BGH, and then to Cork for an angiogram, before returning to Bantry where he was bed-bound for a week.
‘I was allowed home after seven days and I embarked on a slow recovery. I started with walking a lap around the house, then two, then a walk to my gate and to my neighbours but that December I had another setback, another collapse at home that saw me spend two nights in the ICU in Bantry.’
That marked Garry’s last hospital stay but after having up to 30 lung clots, his journey back to health has been a tough one. ‘I went from never being sick in my life to having haematology, lung and heart appointments every other day; suffering shortness of breath and the kind of fatigue I had never known existed,’ he said. Over the following nine months he built up his walking fitness and last August he got the good news from his lung specialist that he was clot free.
‘A recent heart scan was also very positive,’ said the 57 year old.
‘Before I got ill I was training five times a week between running, cycling and swimming. I did two full IronMen – 4km swim, 180km cycle and 42km run in 13.5 hours; and four half IronMen. Will I ever get back to that? Possibly not but that’s not my ambition. I’m just happy once I can exercise.’
As part of his recovery he did 20 sessions in the Bandon Hyperbaric Oxygen Chamber which he describes as an ‘amazing service, run by volunteers’.
The cause of Garry’s clots have never been determined.
‘I had Covid four times so perhaps that was the cause but no one knows for sure. I’m on blood thinner for the rest of my life, and I’m just glad to be alive.’
The physical recovery was something Garry had expected, but the emotional toil it took was not. ‘I was always a very easy going and relaxed person but as I got better physically, my mind went into overdrive, not helped by the knowledge I had as a paramedic. I couldn’t stop thinking about what could have happened. Every time I got an ache in my leg I was afraid it was a clot and I started to suffer from anxiety and have post-traumatic stress flash backs. I had a real fear of dying.’
Garry availed of counselling sessions which equipped him with techniques to stop his thoughts spiralling out of control, and he now feels back to himself.
‘I would never have known the value of counselling before this and I would now wholeheartedly advise anyone to seek help before things get too serious. There is no shame in it.’
March is international blood clot awareness month and Garry is sharing his story to help raise awareness of the signs and symptoms of the condition.
He sought the support of Thrombosis Ireland on his road to recovery, and raised over €2,000 for them, and its ceo Ann Marie O’Neill highlighted how the condition is very treatable if spotted on time, but potentially fatal if not (see panel for what to be on alert for).
Garry encountered further obstacles on his path to recovery including being successfully treated for skin cancer last summer, and also suffering kidney stones.
‘But life is good now. I feel great, I’m back at work, my daughter is getting married this summer, and there’s lots to look forward to. I know I’m very lucky to be alive and I do have a new appreciation of my life.’
