I didn’t get to be a teenager. Not really.
I lost my teen years entirely to cancer. My dad was diagnosed richters transformation just a couple months after I turned 13. I spent most of that year with my dad. In the hospital after school and on weekends. At home, I helped take care of him by making breakfast, juices and desserts.
I can’t lie to you. It was honestly really, really hard.
What 13-year-old is looking after their dying parent? My friends would all hang out on school holidays, and I’d go with my dad to his chemotherapy appointments.
I felt sad, of course, but I also felt out of place and very lonely. My friends just didn’t understand what I was going through, you know?
One thing that did help me during those hard days, was talking to a kind staff member from Canteen. She started coming to visit me at school a couple of months before my dad died. She’d check in and see how I was doing each week. It was really helpful to talk to someone who DID get what I was going through.
Through Canteen, I can talk to a counsellor whenever I need to.
After my dad passed, I felt so lonely with my friends from school. I was also jealous. They still had their dads. They were happy. I had lost my dad and I wasn’t happy. I was talking to counsellors, but I just felt so out of place.
It was hard to figure out who I was after being my dad’s caregiver for more than a year. Then everyone saw me as the student whose dad had died.
Counselling definitely helped me, and I know it helps so many other young people going through the pain of losing a parent or sibling to cancer, or the fear and uncertainty of their own cancer diagnosis.
I’m so grateful that, because of supporters like you, I can speak to a counsellor for free, whenever I need to.
Helps a young person struggling with cancer access online counselling when they need it most.
Allows a young person to attend a Canteen program, connecting with others who’ve been through cancer.
Provides a specialised counselling session for a distressed young person facing by cancer.
