Every little girl has an unbreakable bond with her father. Every little boy has secrets that only his father knows. Every cancer patient’s child wants their parent to win the battle against cancer. I believe that change will not be easy, but with the help of many friends, I am able to get through.

I have lived a privileged life, not much had gone wrong in the almost fourteen years I was alive. But, in October 2014, my father was diagnosed with small cell lung cancer. He immediately started chemotherapy and radiation. He survived a year with lung cancer. He was in remission for three months over the summer of 2015. He went to the doctor for his three month check up to make sure he was still cancer free. He was not cancer free anymore, and the cancer had started spreading. He again immediately started chemotherapy, but not radiation this time. He was in and out of the hospital all the time. He eventually started getting pneumonia every time he had chemotherapy, which meant he could no longer have chemotherapy. The doctor, who also cared for my grandmother before she died of cancer, said there was nothing else he could do. My father was then put on Hospice and given only a few weeks to live. My aunt, my mother’s sister, decided to take me to dinner and to my father’s apartment the night before my birthday. She takes me to dinner every year for my birthday, but going to my father’s was new. Little did I know that this would be the last time I would hear his voice.When I walked out of his apartment, I started crying because I knew he was not going to make it that much longer, but I never would have expected what was coming. The next night, on my fifteenth birthday, November 21, 2015, my aunt, my father’s sister, called me and told me my dad was unresponsive in the emergency room. He had lost his battle with lung cancer.

Since then, time have been difficult. Fortunately, I have friends and family to help me. Therefore, I believe that change will not be easy, but everyone is able to get through it somehow, even if it takes a while.