Television presenter Hector Ó hEochagáin says he has been inundated with emails from people who have got their health checked since he spoke publicly about the sudden death of his brother.
Hector was speaking to The Hard Shoulder as TG4 prepares to air the first episode of his new show ‘Hector – Éire Nua’ at 9:30pm tonight.
The Navan man said he was numb for weeks after his brother Freddie died suddenly while cycling to work in Copenhagen in July.
He said the “really positive thing” that has come out of the tragedy is the number of people who have contacted to say they got their own health checked out after hearing him discussing the death on his podcast.
“I spent the whole of July sitting in the garden – luckily the weather was good – looking at the sky and not feeling anything,” he said.
“I was numb for weeks after it – daydreaming and lonely and empty and feeling fairly shitty.
“August was better. Mentally and physically, you get really tired of the whole thing and questioning stuff, but it is all about surrounding yourself with the right people and I surrounded myself with the family and the local parish.”
He said the kindness of strangers was a huge help over the summer and noted that Ireland is a “unique nation for putting our arms around each other – whether it is in a wake or at a funeral or sitting down and writing something.”
“What I have really learned over the summer is that so many people have lost siblings and losing a brother or sister – especially when boys lose a brother they were very close to – it is very, very common and it happens in all sorts of circumstances,” he said.
“Freddie was my best friend; I knew he was my brother, but he was more than that. I would go to the nightclub with him - there was a couple of years between me and my younger brother - so it was me and him heading out on Saturday night, it was me and him going off in the car, it was me and him heading to Féile or it was me and him heading off to Europe for a couple of weeks.
“I don’t know, losing a parent is hard enough, losing a mum or dad, but losing a sibling is a different grief and it is a different feeling and it’s a feeling that is not nice at all.”
He said he got “great encouragement” from people who shared their own stories of loss with him.
“When they share that with me then there is a shared common bond and it is as if a little bit of weight off the shoulders is lifted and I think that’s what we need to do,” he said.
“Hopefully I have done that on the podcast and we have got so many letters and emails off people who are going to get checked out now.
“So many men in their 40s that have put it on the long finger. So many people in their 50s who say they feel OK but not 100% so I am going to go to my GP and get my cholesterol checked.
“That is a really positive thing coming out this. I have lads coming to me saying Hector I went to the doctor because of the podcast and I was 90% blocked or 70% blocked so thank you and thanks to Freddie.
“Freddie had a cardiac arrest, he died suddenly and he was very, very fit so in the sadness of that and the trauma and the pain of that there are very positive stories coming out now.”
He encouraged men all over Ireland to consider getting their health checked.
“That is all I want men to do,” he said. “Don’t be afraid – no stigma no embarrassment.
“We get our cruciate and we get all other parts of the body fixed in jig time. Don’t be afraid to go into your doctor and say, doctor run a set of bloods there, run the cholesterol do a stress test and just see how I am.
“Give the body and give the heart a bit of an MOT.”
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