Grace Recla

Why I’m participating in the March Charge this year

Hello! This is my 8th year of participating in the cancer council’s March Charge.  I started in 2019, the year my dad passed away from cancer. 

It was actually his second diagnosis of cancer. He first got diagnosed with thyroid cancer when I was around 11 years old. I remember it clearly. We were at a local place having dinner and my mum reached out to wipe something from dad’s neck and brushed past a lump that she felt. I didn’t think too much of it back then, but then a month or two later, she sat us down in the middle of watching tv (Farmer Wants a wife of all shows!). She told us that dad had thyroid cancer. I didn’t know much about cancer other than I knew a lot of people died from it, so that was my first question. He was lucky then, it was a slow moving cancer. We lived a long drive from the nearest capital city.  So I remember he had to get surgery and then rounds of radiation therapy away from us. I’m so grateful I got to spend more time with him. He went into remission for 10 years. 

I was in my second year of University and had moved away to Melbourne when my dad got diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer. He had regular scans and blood tests and was always up to date due to his history but it was never detected. He was always fit, healthy and lively for a 63 year old. He only knew something was wrong because he had really severe lower back pain that just didn’t go away even with painkillers. Doctors had a lot of trouble finding out what was causing it, when finally mum pushed to get more scans. That’s when they found that it was prostate cancer that had metastasised already to his bones. We as a family were so devastated because we knew that the prognosis wasn’t good. After a few months in Adelaide, we got him transferred to Melbourne so that they could continue treatments here and be with us. My sister and I were also able drive our parents to regular appointments between our studies.  My dad stayed at the Peter MacCallum Hospital and we’re so glad such a beautiful public hospital exists. We got to meet some great people there (from his roommates to his nurses) and dad also received the best support from his team outside of hospital. 

Unfortunately, after battling for about 10 months my dad passed away in January 2019. He fought really hard and optimistically. We would take dad out for dinner or a stroll (he always got antsy being inside with nothing to do) sometimes when he was an inpatient, he would joke to his nurses that his girls were kidnapping him 😂.  He was a joy and a fighter through the very end. 

Just in the last couple of years, I’ve also had three aunties (titas in Tagalog) diagnosed with breast cancer. One of my titas passed away early this year. As the eldest of 10 she was a grounding figure in my mum’s family  We were able to say goodbye when we took a trip to the Philippines last year.