INSPIRATIONAL ?Martina Jennings was named Mayo’s Most Inspirational Woman at an awards ceremony in the TF Royal Hotel on Tuesday last, January 6.?Pic: Trish Forde
Dedication, drive and determination
Ciara Galvin
FOR Mayo’s Most Inspirational Woman Martina Jennings, there’s no time to rest on her laurels. The day after receiving the title it was back to reality, collecting her two teenage children Rachel and Iarla from school.
“Ordinary life still goes on,” she tells The Mayo News, laughing.
Martina was first nominated by her youngest brother Billy and then by 20 others, mostly for her tireless efforts for Cystic Fibrosis West and raising funds to build a CF Clinic at Mayo General Hospital.
For Martina, cystic fibrosis is something she and her siblings grew up with in Scardaune. She lost her eldest brother to the condition when he was just a baby, and she is now doing all she can for youngest brother Billy, who also has the condition.
When Martina’s mother Maureen passed away in 1993 at the age of 48, Martina and her sisters, Caroline and Maria, then aged 21, 25 and 18 respectively, became ‘mothers overnight’. Their two younger brothers, Anthony and Billy, were aged just 12 and seven at the time.
Their father, Tony, who still lives in Scardaune, is a founding member of the CF Association, and Maureen had volunteered as a CF liaison officer when she was alive.
Maureen used to visit and give advice to Mayo families with newly diagnosed babies. Poignantly, some of the mothers of those babies attended the awards ceremony, which was held on Nollaig na mBan, January 6.
Although Martina grew up knowing that CF played a huge part in her family’s life, she says the condition was never hidden. “We were never made feel like there was an illness in the house. Mammy was brilliant, saying ‘He has CF, this is how you do the physio, this is how you give the medication’ – and you just do it.”
Making dreams a reality
OVER the past number of years Martina, who now lives in Hollymount, has achieved much that to the average person might seem impossible.
Six years ago Martina and her sister Caroline decided they needed to do something ‘practical’ for CF, and they set up Friends of CF to give financial assistance to CF families.
Later, the sisters approached the CF staff at Mayo General Hospital to find out what they needed. A clinic dedicated to CF patients was the response. And so, with steely determination, the women set off on a mammoth task fundraising through CF West.
In 2011 Martina completed the New York City Marathon, without any training, and though she jokes that all she got was shin splints, she raised an enormous amount for the clinic.
The following year, she set her sights on Mount Kilmanjaro.
“I did Kilimanjaro because I was feeling a bit demotivated about how far we were from getting the clinic, and somebody said to me ‘Remember why you’re doing it, you’re doing it for the patients’. I really wanted to experience what it was like to breathe like a CF patient. The only way I could do that was go into altitude.”
Martina says the climb ‘brought it home’, the reason why she and her sisters were fundraising. “I got to the top and thought ‘Oh my God this is why we’re doing it’. I couldn’t breathe, and wanted to get off [the top] as soon as I got there.”
Although originally costed at €600,000, the funds needed for clinic rose to €1.3 million. An astounding €850,000 was raised by Martina, her sisters and many others, and the clinic is now due to open in March. It will ensure that CF patients will be treated in a separate building, where chance of picking up infection will be greatly decreased.
Thanks to the CF Association and clinics like the one due to open at Mayo General Hospital, the life expectancy of a CF patient has increased from 21 to 28 in the last five years.
Overcoming the worst
BILLY is now 28, and during his illness, Martina and her family have been dealt every kind of card possible. He underwent a double-lung transplant in 2010, but then contracted swine flu in January 2011, and the family prepared for the worst.
Having pulled through this, he and the family were hit with another blow when Billy fell last May and suffered a brain haemorrhage. This most recent misfortune was the hardest of all, says Martina.
“The brain haemorrhage in May was my lowest point. I was so used to being told Billy is going to die. The night he got the transplant in Newcastle, I was told ‘If it doesn’t go ahead he’s not going to live’. And with the swine flu he was on life support, but I believed he was going to get better. But the brain haemorrhage was a total game changer for me. It was the first time I thought ‘This isn’t going to work out’.”
Thankfully, Billy is on the other side of his illnesses now, and he has since created a website informing people about CF and his experiences with it.
Nollaig na mBan
Being named the Most Inspirational Woman in Mayo was a humbling experience for Martina, and she is quick to share the recognition with the people that surround her.
“Just to be nominated and read what people wrote was definitely the most humbling thing ever. I don’t do what I do for CF to get recognition, I do it because we need a clinic. And myself and Caroline and Maria have only ever looked after Billy because our Mam died. That’s what you do, and we did it. So to get recognised for it is nearly like an out-of-body experience.”
So where does the Most Inspirational Woman in Mayo get her drive from? Well, she simply follows the motto of her own inspirational person, her mother: ‘We’re here for such a short time, if you want to do something, just do it’.
