Alyssa Bertrand
Family is everything. Family will love you no matter what happens. Family will be around even if you do not believe so. When everything is shattered, and do not know what to do or where to turn, just look at all the people who is hurting around you. That is where one will find their strength.
Five months ago, my family life’s was flipped upside down when my father was put into the hospital due to breathing problems. It soon escalated to much worse, was all unexpected and shocking.
After being in the hospital for a week, my father was diagnosed with stage four Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma Cancer. This type of cancer is treatable, but since his age and being stage four, the odds were against us. The doctor told us we had two options; either begin chemo, which will have to be the most aggressive level of chemo or do not undergo chemo, but he could have only two weeks with whichever choice we made.
There was no way we would not try to do everything possible to make this work. That night he started his first round of chemo. This first treatment lasted eight hours every twelve hours for three days. In the beginning of August, we received good results, the masses in his chest shrunk in size. That was news we all needed to hear. With all the good there comes bad.
In mid-September my mom woke up to, a call from the nurse explain my dad’s health gotten worse and he was admitted into the ICU. His lungs were not working, as they should. Before he went in ICU, the doctors did another MRI and a bone marrow test. Half of the results were good, the other were bad. His bone marrow came back clean, which means his bones were cancer free, but they found a huge mass one of his lungs that was causing his breathing problems. The doctors were not sure what this mass was, but it was not cancer. The doctors did everything they could to understand and figure out what the huge fast growing mass on his lung.
The word ventilator is a word that no one wants to hear about a family member. My dad was put on a ventilator because he was using all his energy trying to breathe on his own. After two weeks, the hospital looks into a different or alternate way to help the patient’s breathing. Normally a TRAC would be put in the patient.
Saturday, October 3, my dad took his last breath. My family and I stood around his and prayed for him. Prayed that he would not be suffering anymore. Losing someone you love is never easy. The thought of waking up the next day to someone missing is painful but family is always going to be there. They are there for comfort, to lean on, to help in need, and to love one another in times of pain. Family is everything.