Says Fallsburg student;
BRAVERY IS ONE THING, BUT BRAVERY WITH GOD IS ANOTHER…
By Luis Chicko
One beautiful sunny Friday in October. Everything was amazing everything was going well until…
That day I was in reading class. But, we had to go over to the language teacher’s class. I really did not care at all because we still had to do a spelling test. I was sitting in my chair, not listening to my teacher at all. Then my teacher got a call from the front office. I was half asleep, then suddenly my teacher told me that I was checking out. I was like, “yay, no spelling test”, but she still made me do it. After I packed up, and as I was coming around the corner, my mom looked petrified. Then I got a knot in my stomach.
My mom signed me out, she was very quiet. I asked her if she was okay and all she said was, “yes” in a squeaky voice. Then I knew something was wrong. I got the chill bumps as I saw my dad in the front seat with IV in him. I froze, then all kinds of thoughts ran through my head.
The reason I was so petrified, frozen and scared out of my pants, was because that day my dad dropped me off at school because he was on his way to the doctor’s office to get a CAT scan. He went because one of his best friends is a doctor and my dad told his friend that he had some pain swallowing food. The doctor said, “ok, let’s get a CAT scan just to check it out”. My dad would not have done anything but his friend insisted. I did not know anything else, so my heart was beating out of my chest.
So, I finally hopped in my car and my big brother Moe and my other brothers Carlo and Marcello and my sister Carmella was in the car. I climbed in the back seat then I gently asked, “why did you take us out of school what’s going on?” All they said was “nothing, It’s Friday and so we decided to” and that’s all they said. And when I asked them are you sure, everything is fine, they said yes there is nothing at all wrong. I still thought something was up.
We finally reached our house. I got out as fast as I could and raced my brother to the door. I won. We were racing to get the TV remote. I grabbed it, but right as I was getting ready to turn on the tv, my dad called us into the main room. We all sat down and I was scared stiff.
My dad explains how he had the pain in his chest, which we knew. He talks about how he went to the CAT scan but then I looked back at my mom and she was crying so I knew something bad was happening. The twins were running around the house because they did not know what was going on and did not care.
Then my dad said he got there and they did the CAT scan and his friend looked like a ghost, his friend, Tom, was frozen. As he looked over his results the doctors walked up to my dad and said in a low voice to my dad, “you have cancer”. I looked back at my dad. I did not know what to think so I started crying so did my brother and my other brother. I had so many thoughts running through my head. I thought “Oh my gosh, cancer.” But my dad said “It will be fine. We will be ok. Cancer is a very scary thing. We will get through it because we have God on our side. Right there I felt God warm my heart. I was still sad but not too sad because I know God was with me and my family. Right after that I hugged my dad really hard and I prayed for him. Then I said LET’S KILL THIS THING!
A few weeks passed my dad went out to Cincinnati to get a new scan to find out where it is and how much. They found out that he had stage 3 cancer in his esophagus plus he had a 10 in his blood levels. It could go up to 100 and more. A 100 is almost everywhere. 10 is not too bad but still bad. The doctors still said he had to do radiation and chemo. My dad said chemo is like a huge army coming in and killing everything and radiation is like snipers that shrink it. He was on chemo for like a month then after that he had to do surgery. Through that time he saw doctors from all over.
A few months later in Christmas time my dad had a surgery coming. So we decided to do Christmas early because he would be in Cincinnati for Christmas. My dad and mom went to Cincinnati before us to get ready and meet everyone. Me and my brothers and sister came to Cincinnati with my oma and my opa. We were going to stay at Great Wolf Lodge while my mom and dad went to stay at the hospital. We had a really awesome time. Everyday we went to stay with my dad for like an hour or more a day. One time I came down for the game, Steelers vs Ravens to go into the playoffs. It was awesome, Steelers won.
Also every day we got my dad out of bed to walk around the lobby. The surgery my dad had was one of the top 10 surgeries your body can handle. My dad is strong so I knew he could get through it… also he had God on his side. The doctors that did my dad’s surgery said he was as hard as a rock. One week passed and we went home but my mom and dad stayed there.
At this time I had to be very brave. Also I had to fight through this hard time even when I got scared. Also what helped me was praying to God.
After being in the hospital for 10 days my dad came home. When he came home, he always was tired and very weak. But he enjoyed being here more than the hospital. He could not sleep in his bed because he could have aspirated. You could die from that. So we got him a recliner so he can sleep in. He liked it a lot more than the hospital. When he was in surgery, he could not drink anything for 7 days. He could not eat anything for 10 days.
When they went in they took out all of his esophagus and most of his stomach. Then they took what was left of this stomach and formed it into a new esophagus. He could only eat liquids for sometime after the 10 days. 3 to 4 weeks after that he finally started eating normal food and they took off the machine he was on to feed him food.
Three months after surgery we went to Michigan to give my dad a fundraiser. Families and friends made this happen. We were so thankful they did that. When they threw it it was inside there was a stage, a bar a kitchen and stuff like that. People from all over donated gift bags to put in the Raffle. The big prizes went into the big Raffle like a signed ball by the Lions a TV also a $100 gift card to Target. There was also a bunch of bands and face painting. I was blown out of the water when I saw the turn out. People after people just kept coming.
So many people came even people from my dad’s high school. We raised a lot of money to help bills and all of that. It does not matter about the money we were so thankful for all the help and support from people and everyone had an awesome time.
One month later we were up facing another round of chemo. So any little cancer cells do not grow to make a big one. So we are doing another round of chemo to wipe it out.
With God on our side family and friends, this thing was dead. With God on our side it is easier to be brave and have courage.
That’s how I got through this.
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I have a story from a 5th grade student, Luis Chicko. His father was diagnosed with cancer in the fall. I would like to share the story with the community. He has worked so hard to demonstrate his feelings about what he has been through over the past few months. It is also showcasing his improvement in his writing. We are so proud of him!!! —
Sara Bowen
Principal
Fallsburg Elementary/Middle School
606-826-2351