Mr. Robert Hurley:

I came from a fitness background. This was totally out of the blue. I had several jobs and never looked at a pay cheque in my life. All of a sudden, I knew something was wrong. It is not just a year and a half. I had to ask the doctor eventually to put me on medicine. I was put on Eklira, the COPD medication and so on. It was by luck that the doctor knew somebody in the Mater to refer me there. There is a wonderful team there. There was one guy in particular, Liam Chawke, who has gone to Tralee. He taught me everything about this because even though I come from a professional background, I knew nothing about this. I did not even know what ILFA stood for.

I was recommended for pulmonary fibrosis treatment because I had passed the test for the lung transplant. It took me seven months to deal with that. I made the decision to give up work. If I did not have family and a wife that worked, I could not do this. There is stress involved that cannot be measured. I did not do the pulmonary because I said I was too young and fit, but I can tell you, I was forced to do it because every time I met the lung transplant crowd, I had to have it done, so when I gave up work, I had time to do it. I was surprised and shocked for three weeks. I felt every muscle in my body because I had not been using those muscles since I retired from physical sport. When I got a cold or a flu, I was down for three or four weeks. I ended up back at square one again. It is a vital part of it, which I would not have known. A physical aspect of it is needed. It is probably 50% or 25% of the reason I am okay with getting the proper high-tech drugs and access to nurses and respiratory care. I have that.

There are things you cannot control, such as oxygen. If I cannot control that, I am at their mercy and I do not like that. I will queue up if I have to and I have done so, but not everybody can do that. They are not strong enough to go down and ask for it. I met a woman in the street who asked me if I would talk to her husband. He was prescribed 2 l of oxygen. He would not come out of the house. He was 70. I did that. I got a text last night. I thought it was just because I did not have a medical card that I got a letter from the HSE saying it could not help me. The woman texted me last night at 12.15 a.m. He is on 40 l of those tanks every month. Their daughters, who are living there, have to go down and beg for them. People with medical cards have problems too. They should be dealing with them if they are not dealing with me.