Cancer: How it affected my family and I

A life story about my dad's battle and how my family and I were affected Instagram and Twitter Handle: fcbgreenday_230 Email: [email protected]

I wish I still had the normal routine in the morning, wake up, brush my teeth, shower, put on clothes and then go to school for seven hours. But, what makes my normal routine a bit different is that I have to worry. I have to worry about my father, who had two cancers and is living with Type 2 Diabetes. I'm also a sixteen year old with learning deficits. I have ADD, ADHD and Aspergers, which is a slight form of Autism. So, as you can tell, stress. That's my main factor in life. Stress is was forced me to grow up faster as well having to care for myself at most times since my father, wasn't there to teach me to.

Now, I'm going to get into depth about my dad, how it all started and what exactly happened. May 2nd, 2010, a Saturday morning. It was a particularly special morning. I play soccer at a higher level, but at the time I wasn't and I had a tournament that morning. It was a cold and frigid morning for the beginning of May. It was below freezing, hot chocolate, blankets and jackets with everyone as they watched my game. My father was not on those sidelines. He was in the car, in pain. This was the first symptom of what was to come. He had pain so agonizing that he couldn't walk. So we thought he might have broken something. My mom and him went to the ER and everything came back negative. No breaks, no bumps, no bruises. So they just went home, not knowing that an extremely hard and almost fatal battle was lying ahead of us.

I was ten at the time he got diagnosed. A ten year old, turning 11, going into the sixth grade, not knowing that he might lose his father at such a critical time in his life. My dad was diagnosed right before my birthday, I'd say roughly 15 days before it. My birthday is July 20th, 1999. I was turning the “double hockey sticks”, as my dad always liked to call it. I was in a summer camp called Summit. It's for children who are adolescents, as I am, to learn how to cope with being Autistic and to learn life skills. Such as being polite and other manners that are proper. I remember the exact place I was where he told us, who was there, and what was happening. I was out with my grandparents for the day and my mom called my grandma and said to bring me to my house immediately because we had bad news. My great grandmother from my father's side passed away a couple of days before so I didn't know what to expect. When we got there my whole family was there and I had no idea what was going on. Then, my father told us what was wrong with him. He told us that he had Stage 3 Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia and he needed to start chemotherapy immediately. I remember the way he cried when he told us. It was the cry that you can't control and sticks with you until you go to sleep. Luckily, we are so fortunate to have one of the best cancer treatment hospitals in the nation. The name of the facility is Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, NY. We're so lucky to have them here because if we didn't we would have to travel to Ohio for him to get treatment and we wouldn't have wanted to constantly do that.

Throughout the years of his treatment, he constantly had complications. Some were minor like an infection, and some were major like GVH which is Graft-versus-host disease. I didn't know what the was at the time he was sick but now I know that it well could have killed him if it wasn't treated. GVH is a result of the host cells from your body fighting the bone marrow transplant. My dad received his bone marrow transplant in January of 2011, so it's been about 5 years since he received it and he's doing well now. We never got to know who the donor was, all we knew is that she was from Arizona. His donor was a woman so he's technically a woman by blood. I find it funny and so does he that when he gets blood tests that they come come back as him being a woman. We crack jokes about it all the time actually.

My dad has Type 2 Diabetes like I stated in my introductory paragraph. He always either has high or low sugar, there's not really an “in between” so much anymore. My dad is a heavier set kind of guy. I'd say he's about 290 and he's 6’3. He always ate good when he was young but I guess all those times you eat bad food truly catches up to you. His blood sugar tends to crash. As in to the point where he's completely unresponsive, in which case we call 911. I remember it was 7th grade. I went upstairs to his room to say goodbye to him like I usually do and he was completely unresponsive and his breathing was very small and rational. I rushed downstairs to tell my mom and call 911 and the paramedics came and hooked him up with some sugar water to get his levels back to normal and said if I didn't say goodbye to him, he probably would have died.

When my dad was being treated it was hard for me. I didn't really see him that much because I had lots of things to do. Homework, soccer, etc. He also didn't want my sister and I to see him in the pain and the way he was. He was in a medically induced coma at one point and I didn't find out that he was until about a year ago when he was in it in 2012.

Along until now I've just been extremely stressed and depressed. I've been on many different medications to help it but nothing has really worked enough to help as much as I wanted them to. Nothing. I also have in school and outside counseling. That really helps more than the medications though. I think it's just having a sense of someone being there for you for any situation at any time. I could never truly give up like some people could. I couldn't leave this world so early with such a fun life ahead of mine that I have now. I taught myself to never give up and to keep pushing even when life was at it’s worst, then again, I didn't think it could get any worse. Then it did.

He was in remission for a good while. I still went with him to his doctors appointments to keep him company at Roswell on those 5-6 hour days there. All was good and everything was safe. Until December-January ish of 2014/2015. He developed a cancerous tumor in his neck and they just monitored it at the beginning just to make sure everything was okay and stable and then it turned to not being okay and stable. He needed surgery to get it removed because it started growing and growing. When he got the surgery it was around Valentine’s Day and it was a hard time for me because I didn't want to see him in pain again and I was hoping that we didn't have to go through what happened with his leukemia. Luckily, the doctors at Roswell are amazing and I'm grateful for them. He had part of the tissue in his face removed the cover up the part where they performed the surgery.

He's been in remission since that incident. He's on Permanent Disability which isn't really good because my mom can't work either due to having back issues so we don't have any income in the house except for the government money and me working part time as a soccer referee and trainer. I don't like not having money. At all. It just feel weird since all my friends have all the luxuries that I don't have. I can't go out sometimes because I don't have money to pay to get into something, I can't buy snacks and drinks at 7-Eleven in the summer or go to Tim Horton’s before school. I can't even buy nice gifts for my friends birthdays or anything like that. I can't work that much because I have to watch my dad. I don't mind it because I know he's still alive and there but it still hurts that I can't go out and be a teenager how I was meant to be.

So that's basically it. If anyone else needs advice on anything or help please feel free to contact me on my Instagram, Twitter or by my email which will be in the description. Thank you so much for reading this.

Author's Note

Thank you for reading this. Feel free to make suggestions on my writing!