87/365: Alan LaCasse, Co. Laois.

Life feels truly unfair sometimes. All Alan has wanted in life is a family of his own. After being abandoned at a train station in the UK by his mother when he was a child, he finally made his way back to Ireland and started his own family. He has 5 wonderful children, a wife and a 10 week old puppy called Elvis.

When Alan first reached out to me, he wanted to tell me his adoption story, that was November 2025. By the time I made it to Laois, Alan had received some devastating news. In December 2025 he started to get some worrying symptoms. He twinged his back while carrying his 5 year old autistic son and he also had blood in his stool. At the hospital he was diagnosed with terminal colon cancer.

The cancer has spread to his liver and bones. His back is fractured due to weakened bones, leaving him fairly bedridden. His life has been turned upside down and even with chemo he’s not sure how long he has left. All he wants now is to do everything as big and extravagantly as possible so as to leave his kids with the most amazing memories of him. He’s secured concert tickets for the older ones, hoping maybe they’ll get to meet their musical heroes and remember the night forever. He is also trying to figure out something perfectly ‘Mickey Mouse’ related for the youngest. In an ideal world he’d take them all to Disneyland. In an ideal world, his cancer wouldn’t exist.

Chatting to me today was exhausting for Alan, but he did it so that other people would take their symptoms seriously. More and more people under 50 are presenting with colon cancer. If bowel cancer is found early, it’s easier to treat and there’s a better chance of recovery.

Today is the start of Bowel Cancer Awareness month. Today’s episode was earmarked for my pal, Glenn Keating. We were to record his own story of bowel cancer on March 18th, but cancer took him sooner than we all thought.

Meeting Alan, hearing his story (so similar to Glenn’s), and publishing it on this day, was all purely coincidental.

I’m so grateful to Alan for sharing his story today.

Please see @bowelcancerireland for more information, get yourself screened regularly, and take all symptoms seriously.

Rx

Sin Scéal Eile - That's Another Story was hosted and created by Ruth Medjber, with sound by Ronan Lally. The podcast is produced by Dee Reddy at Poddle Audio with original music by Elaine Mai.

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