Post for a very special Dad

This years Fathers day was really important to my family and me. In January my Dad was diagnosed with cancer, non-hodgekins lymphoma. Tests showed that it had spread quite far and was even in his bone marrow. Needless to say we were all devestated. My Dad has always been healthy, has never had any serious illness and this was a total shock, he thought he had a chest infection. The word cancer is so very scary. You immediately assume the worst, you think 'this is it, how long has he got?' We read all the information we could, kept our fears from our Dad and made a valiant effort to treat him as 'normal', as per his request. He didn't want us to worry or be upset, so instead we made him laugh by making 'bald' jokes. To be honest, making jokes about it and keeping his spirits high was the only way to get through it, you know the 'either laugh or cry' saying.

6 months on and hes completed all his chemo, without any real side effects. You wouldn't have even known he was ill. He has been so brave and strong, just getting on with everything with no fuss at all. He is waiting to have another all body scan and bone marrow test to find out if the cancer is gone, but his x-rays show all the tumors in his chest have gone and the consultant has said if they are gone from his chest, likley hood is its gone everywhere else. His blood count is normal which also looks good for the bone marrow.

So we wanted to do something a bit special this fathers day. My sister came up with the idea of chinese lanterns. We told Dad to meet us down the beach at 9pm on Fathers day. He was a bit confused about what was going on as we wouldnt tell him what we were planning, but agreed to be there! The whole family came and when Mum and Dad arrived we told them we wanted to each light a lantern and send it off into the sky as a way of saying goodbye to the chemo treatments, and to let Dad know how very special he is to us, how proud we are of him and how glad we are that he was here to celebrate Fathers day.

Here are the photos

Sunset at Appley beach

The first lantern is lit and sent up by Dad

The kids lantern getting ready to fly

All of us

This was such a great idea of my sister's. It was quite emotional watching the lanterns fly up into the sky, knowing how lucky we are to have our Dad with us. The lanterns went really high and flew for miles, we watched them float towards Portsmouth untill we lost sight of them.

I know this isn't a normal post for me, I usually keep this blog strictly craft related! But I wanted to share how proud I was of my Dad and also to let people know that if cancer does find its way into your family, as it did ours, it's not always the beginning of the end. We are still waiting for the final results but things are looking good and I know my Dads positive attitude, our thoughts and healing prayers for him will be succesful.

Thanks for listening!

sami x