She asked him to go to the doctors but my father refused. One of the reasons my dad didn’t want to go to the doctors was due to petrol prices (we live in the country). I noticed something was wrong when my dad had a short temper, was not eating much and was going to sleep more than before. It was late August when my mum finally forced him to go.

That night and throughout the week I found out my dad had a Grade 4 Aggressive Renal Cell Carcinoma on his left kidney. When I found out I wasn’t that shocked because

"I already knew that something was wrong"

But I was scared as the meaning of it started to hit me. I tried to deal with it by locking myself in my room and focusing on my schooling, trying to block any negative thoughts I had. I became good at English and my other studies improved but my Math just stayed down and even got worse. Still, sometimes after my parents would go to bed I would cry because a couple of days before my dad was diagnosed we had had a fight.

Only a couple of days after I was told he had cancer, test results told the doctors that he had to come into hospital the next day. Dad explained it like a train ride, all the stations close to each other: it's like stopping at Station Doctor, then Hospital and then Surgery and so on. And the surgery was only days before Father’s day, his birthday and wedding anniversary! I only visited my dad once, because

"I had a fear of hospitals."

After the operation, the doctor told my mum that the left kidney was removed and everything was fine. But we knew that something else was going to go wrong.

Sure enough, about 5 months later in February 2009 the Victorian Bushfires came and swept the towns around us. Luckily we didn’t have to evacuate. Just as I thought things couldn’t get any worse. I was so wrong.

In April, Dad went for a check up to see if everything was ok. It wasn’t.

"The cancer had grown back"

and spread to the lymph nodes all around his body, his right lung and the kidney sack where his kidney had been removed. My dad is currently on medication because they cannot remove the cancer by surgery. They prescribed him chemotherapy pills that are a trial drug.

He is currently in good condition with few side effects and with every check up the news gets better, the cancer is decreasing. But even now my dad is still on a strict medical routine and it has made his taste buds a lot more sensitive. The trips to and back from the doctors are really stressful and depressing. The whole family is starting to get depressed.

Some people say that he may last 3 years or 30 years. It’s still very hard.