Tori - 16 years old

I feel like if I had known that, I would have seen him more than every second weekend...

A year ago my dad was diagnosed with T-Cell lymphoma, that usually affects males in their 70’s; he was only 40 when diagnosed. I was 15 years old (grade 10). We weren’t the closest family. Actually we weren’t much of a family at all, my parents have been split all of my life and refused to talk to one another. He undertook 2 rounds of chemo and neither worked, so our final option was a stem cell transplant. This is a risky procedure, but was our last hope; he survived and went into remission.

We weren’t in the clear yet, not long afterwards he was back in hospital with graft versus host disease, a week after visiting in hospital I was rushed out of a theme park to go to hospital being told he only had a couple of hours to live. I arrived and he had been sedated, he was in a coma for a week. I feel as though this coma was longer than necessary, after a few days my family and I knew he was no longer there mentally, but doctors insisted he was; providing us with false hope meanwhile poking and prodding at my dad like he was a lab rat. By the Monday we had to turn off the machines watching his last few breathes (couple hours that was).

I regret a lot, after finding out he had cancer he constantly told me it wasn't serious and they caught it early, but he failed to mention the doctors telling him there was only a 12% chance of him surviving. I feel like if I had known that, I would have seen him more than every second weekend, taken time off school, stopped dealing with teenage shit and spent time with him and have him pass knowing he at least knew me as a person.

Page updated 20 January 2016