Colleen McCullough to undergo brain surgery
November 30th 2009 00:51
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Colleen McCullough, the Australian author of the best-selling novel The Thorn Birds, is to undergo brain surgery for a condition that causes "unbelievable pain" to her face.
The award-winning author of 21 novels suffers from trigeminal neuralgia, an illness nicknamed the 'suicide disease' because it causes excruciating pain to all parts of the face including the lips and eyes, and is difficult to control or cure.
She is to have surgery in January to relieve the pressure on her brain but is afraid the operation could leave her unable to write again.
Ms McCullough, who is halfway through her 22nd novel, told Sydney's Sunday Telegraph newspaper: "The pain is unbelievable. I'm a wordsmith but I can't describe to you what it feels like. I just stand there and cry. I'm really not a sook; I'm tough but it's bad pain."
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The 72-year-old writer said her greatest fear was not of dying but of losing her mind and being unable to write again.
"The biggest risk is surviving but not being me any more - that would be worse, I think," said Ms McCullough who was a neuroscientist before she turned to writing.
"It's daunting when you know what you're in for and you know the risks. But you pay your money and you take your chance; it's that simple," she added.
A promotional tour for Ms Mccullough's latest book Too Many Murders had been booked but she has been in too much pain to travel from her home on Norfolk Island, a remote location halfway between Australia and New Zealand.
Two years ago Ms McCullough, who is a diabetic, had pioneering treatment to save her failing eyesight. After being diagnosed with macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy in 2002 she had lost most of the sight in her left eye and was starting to lose the sight in her right eye when Australian opthalmologist Mark Gillies took her on as his patient. His treatment, which is now used worldwide, involved injecting steroids into the eye to stop bleeding in the retina, the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye that processes images.
The Thorn Birds sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, and was turned into a television miniseries starring Richard Chamberlain and, more recently, a musical. Other novels including Tim and An Indecent Obsession also became best-sellers and were turned into box office hits.
She is also respected for the amount of research she puts into her books. The depth of historical research for her novels on ancient Rome including The First Man in Rome and Caesar's Women led to her being conferred a Doctor of Letters by Macquarie University in Sydney.
More recently, Ms McCullough courted controversy when she appeared to defend the male inhabitants of Pitcairn Island during the sexual assault trial of 2004 when seven men went on trial accused of 55 charges of sexual assault including rape.
Ms McCullough, whose New Zealander mother was half Maori, asserted that the rapes committed by the men on girls as young as 12 were "indigenous customs" and that "It's Polynesian to break your girls in at 12."
All but one of the accused was found guilty of at least some of the charges
From: Timesonline
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