what’s it all about?

Christmas Eve 1979 and a post box in Airdrie became the unlikely tryst where a 14 year-old boy asked the 15 year-old girl along the road if she would “go out” with him.

Nearly 10 years later, in July 1989, Sheila and Stephen were married at Balquhidder Church in Perthshire.

Fast-forward to October 2002 where they have established a life for themselves and their three young children on the Isle of Skye. They have built a beautiful house in the idyllic crofting township of Borve near Portree.

From the outside everything seems perfect and that is how it appears to Sheila and Stephen themselves. Then their world falls apart.

Sheila is diagnosed with a rare but potentially disastrous form of cancer of the bile ducts in the liver. Two weeks before Christmas she has 70% of her liver removed in a 7-hour operation at the Liver Unit in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. She spends the next 3 months recovering but the operation appears to have been a success.

Then a follow-up scan reveals secondary lung deposits. Sheila spends the next 14 months undergoing aggressive chemotherapy. But in October 2004 the headaches she has had for a few days turn out to be a large secondary tumour in the brain. Surgery would kill her so the only option is total brain radiotherapy and ongoing chemotherapy. She is forty years of age and has three young children.

In February 2003 I decided to set about trying to raise some money for the Liver Unit in Edinburgh for giving Sheila time to live that she would otherwise not have had. The unit is at the forefront of research into helping people with liver disease and is led by Professor James Garden.

Sheila and I are both great lovers of traditional music and, although not musicians ourselves, we have many friends and acquaintances that are involved in traditional music. I decided to put together a CD to raise funds.

The deal was that everyone had to contribute for nothing in order to maximize the funds going to the Liver Unit. So all the artists, producers, engineers and recording studios have done just that (as have the graphic designers and the record label). The only thing that will make money out of this disc is the Edinburgh Liver Unit.

As this is written Sheila continues to battle her cancer but this project has been of immense therapeutic value to both of us. It has restored our faith in the ultimate goodness that lies at the heart of what it is to be human.

Stephen McCabe,
Borve, Isle of Skye
March 2005
steveborve@hotmail.com

Sheila died on the 30th May 2005

  Back to top ^