Twenty-nine weeks after Feakle’s Gary Guilfoyle suffered a stroke and collapsed, he is in contention to feature in the Munster club hurling semi-finals.
Declan Bogue WITH TWENTY MINUTES left on the clock, everyone could see that the famine was about to end. Underdogs Feakle were drawing a close to 36 years without a Clare championship by beating a proper championship team in Sixmilebridge.
Only here he was. On the sideline. In a pair of tracksuit bottoms. An unused sub. Something of a taboo in Gaelic games.“My dream had come true. We had won the county championship. But I wasn’t a part of it,” he says. In the dressing room, he was rooted to his spot on the benches. Some team mates had already showered and dressed while he sat there. They thought it strange that this veteran was taking a defeat like this so personally.
His aunt Maureen noticed some Order of Malta medics and brought them over. Probably a bit of concussion, they half-apologised to the medics. “There was a blockage in my brain and there wasn’t any oxygen getting to my brain. I wanted to go to sleep and I was drifting, my head dropping and eyes closing,” he recalls.
Advertisement A phonecall to the ambulance service proved frustrating. The person on the end of the line kept insisting on speaking with Guilfoyle, who simply could not keep his eyes open let alone speak. After a second CT scan, a nurse asked in her innocence where his overnight bag was. Then Guilfoyle began to get worried.
Bit by bit, this family unit they stepped their way through it. Was it cancerous or benign? As the hours rolled on, more consultants and doctors came by with the results of a latest scan or some news.And then, a twist: it wasn’t a lesion at all. He had a stroke. The advice was to do nothing for the first six weeks. He thought it might be ok and he couldn’t drive anyway, so the plan was to have a lie-in, get up and potter round the house before hitting the sofa to chill out.
“I was due back to see the specialist in Galway at the start of August for a scan. And when I got that, the results went over. I had a feeling… I was always someone who had great healing power. A six-week injury would keep me out for 10 days just. I would never, ever be sick. I am strong that way.“And he said it so nonchalant! I asked him to repeat it and he explained the thickness of the artery, the flow, everything was right with it. A full recovery.
GAA Gary Gary Guilfoyle Guilfoylele Hurling Interview
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