It still sometimes only feel like it was yesterday when I got the call to say my dad was in hospital with a mystery illness. In fact is was August 2008. I remember rushing to his bedside and just wanting to hold him and make it all go away. I'd never seen my dad look that ill before and little did I know that worse was yet to come.
After weeks of tests and uncertainty it was revealed that he was suffering from high-grade non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. It didn't sink in straight away, I think in my naive way I thought that the doctors would fire a bit of chemotherapy at the offensive cells and that everything would be hunky-dory. Of course, it's never as simple as that.
Now we're nearly two years down the line and my hero dad is still hanging in there. The doctors have explained that he cannot have any more chemotherapy, that it would do more harm than good. This is after a course of salvage chemotherapy (I believe that's what it was called). But the good news is that he continues to "defy the doctors" as he puts it and carries on living and is not feeling too terrible in the process. He's already had some red blood cells from my aunt and godmother, his sister, and he's soon to have some lymphocytes too. The first transplant took well so hopefully this next one will too. I will always be eternally grateful to my aunt for what she has done for her brother.
Through my teenage years my dad and I weren't exactly close but now it seems that we're closer than we ever have been. I've always loved my dad of course but now I'm terrified of losing him when is feels like we're just getting to know each other. It's at times like these that I wish I were closer to my step-mother and half-sister as well as the rest of my paternal family so I'd have closer links with them all.
Despite all these goings on I managed to graduate from university in September 2009 with a respectable grade but due to the recession I'm still job hunting. Sadly dad was too frail to come to the ceremony but I tried to make up for it with plenty of photos for him. I just want to make him proud and show him how much I love him before the chance to do so is taken away from me. I've wasted so much time and so many opportunities in my life, hence why I was one of the more senior members of my graduating class. But my relationship with my dad can't wait any longer, my whole family and I are praying that he will continue to make progress and at the very least have a longer life to look forward too if not a full recovery. I wish I had the courage to simply tell him "Dad, I love you" but we're both so shy/stubborn that I cannot remember either of us actually ever saying it to one another.
I'm hoping that in writing a blog I will find some sort of release to all the emotions that I seem to carry around day-in-day-out. Even if no body reads them I'd like to think that my anxiety symptoms will be reduced through the shear process of getting my feelings out in some form.
To those of you who have seen fit to read through my rambling, I thank you. I'm thinking of you always Dad and never forget how much I love you
