'I had my honeymoon in Vincent's' - Designer Helen Cody tells of six-hour cancer surgery
Designer Helen Cody joined Ryan Tubridy on the Late Late Show couch on last night to discuss her six-hour long cancer surgery just eight days after her wedding day.
She spoke about her fears as she lay on the operating table and the relief and delight at making it through the surgery.
"I had my honeymoon in Vincent's which was, you know, not exactly what we were planning," she told Ryan.
"There was such a momentum with the wedding. We had a little bit of calm time just to kind of psychologically prepare for this huge huge surgery, I mean it was six hours."
She spoke of the fear that overcame her before the surgery and that she believed that she would not survive surgery.
I didn't say it to anybody and it was completely irrational and illogical but I remember thinking I'm going to die today in the theatre. Something's going to happen and I'm not going to survive this.
She said that she remembers being "pretty much inconsolable" and apologised to the "poor doctors and nurses".
"I was irrationally upset," she said.
She said that after coming through the other side of the surgery, she remembers waking up in the recovery room.
She, first of all, looked at her hands and checked her feet and looking down she thought to herself "oh my god, I'm okay, I'm well and I'm alive, I'm actually alive".
Speaking about the doctors and nurses she said they did an incredible job.
I went in on March 28 with cancer and that evening I didn't have cancer anymore.
Speaking about her chemotherapy treatment she said:
"I had absolutely no understanding of how horrendous chemotherapy is."
It's a necessary evil because you go in quite well and strong and you go through a chemo treatment and it sort of takes you down with it.
"You have to let go and let it do its thing."
She said that she was proud of the fact that she appeared on the show as she was originally due to have her last chemo treatment three weeks ago.
"Due to circumstances and the type of treatment I'm having my oncologist decided that I didn't need to so I would have been at home under a blanket tonight watching you," she told Ryan.
"It just proves the power of how strong bodies can be."
She said that although it is difficult, to believe that you can get through the cancer diagnosis and the treatment.
"You can get through it, it is bloody difficult but you can get through it," she said.
Helen Cody's experience in the world of fashion spans almost three decades, having worked extensively in London Paris and New York for the worlds leading publications.
A graduate in fashion and textiles from NCAD, she moved to Paris to work for French Vogue and Azzedine Alaia where she developed her skills as a leading stylist for fashion magazines, music videos, TV Commercials and Celebrities.
She returned to Ireland in 2013 having lived in London for five years and re-established her fashion label.
Her work has been exhibited in the royal college of Art London, the Centre Culturel in Paris, the Solomon Galleries and Dublin Castle, as part of the PORTFOLIO exhibition.
