LEGENDARY Offaly boss Michael Bond never lets his spirits drop after being diagnosed with amyloidosis in 2021.
Bond was the Faithful’s secret agent in 1998 when he led them to All-Ireland glory out of nowhere.
He was diagnosed with the condition in 2021, where amyloid proteins build up on vital organs and cause them not to work properly.
Bond’s amyloidosis affected his heart, and he was treated with intense chemotherapy to battle the disease.
The disease cannot be fully cured – but he is relishing life at 76 despite his condition.
He said: “From August to Christmas in 2021, I was in hospital nearly all the time. I had fierce problems with breathing because my heart capacity was reduced.
“Because of the deposits of amyloidosis on my heart, my heart capacity was reduced down to about 30, 33 per cent. And you see, it can’t pump the fluid out of the lungs.
“It was horrendous the first couple of years because I had, let’s say, 24 chemo sessions in a row once a week and I had 24 sessions in a row the following time.
“And of course I lost a lot of weight and it was very embarrassing when I’d meet very close people that knew me so well and didn’t recognise me.
“You’re totally lethargic, but the point is that we had to do it in order to stop the flow of the amyloidosis – of the amyloid protein.
“I was detected, maybe four or five years too late. It’s a dangerous disease. It’s an incurable, rare disease, but it’s dangerous.
“But thanks be to God that life is good. We can’t do too much, but we’re living.”
The Loughrea man looked on from a New York bar when Babs Keating’s “sheep in a heap” were hammered 3-10 to 1-11 in the 1998 Leinster final and the SunSport columnist quit as boss.
Five days later, Bond took his first session as Offaly manager. Less than 10 weeks after that, they were All-Ireland champions on September 13.
Their All-Ireland semi-final trilogy with Clare was one of the biggest sagas in hurling history, as referee Jimmy Cooney blew the replay up five minutes too early, with Clare 1-16 to 2-10 ahead.
Throngs of Offaly fans sat on the Croke Park pitch in protest, and the GAA agreed to play a second replay in Thurles – which they won 0-16 to 0-13.
They got sweet revenge on the Cats in the All-Ireland final, as Brian Whelehan starred with 1-6 in a 2-16 to 1-13 win.
Bond is the subject of this week’s episode of TG4’s Laochra Gael, which airs tomorrow night at 9.30pm. And the Galway man admits that 10 weeks of mayhem was the stuff of dreams.
He said: “But when I became a school principal then in ’86 you couldn’t go and train a team.
“But the fact that Offaly was available in ‘98 during the summer holidays and I was available, it just happened, and it’s almost like a mystery that it happened.
“It’s surreal. I mean, the length of time that I was there in ‘98 was just over 10 weeks. From the time I went in until the All-Ireland final day. So that’s surreal. It’s almost like a fairy tale.”
