‘Be brave and take care of your sister’: moving letters from late father to his daughters – People – Culture

In an emotional display of love and care, a dedicated father has left a legacy for his twin daughters by write birthday cards for the next 30 years of their lives.

This story has traveled the world through the ‘Brain Tumor Research’ campaign, a charity that seeks to improve the understanding, diagnosis and treatment of brain tumors, as well as find a cure for this disease.

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Nick Keenan, a resident of West Sussex, England, was diagnosed with a astrocytomaa brain tumor the size of a tennis ball, in 2015.

Despite undergoing multiple treatments, unfortunately passed away at the age of 34 in November 2020 due to glioblastoma (GBM).

(Also read: Brain tumor removed from young man in delicate surgery while awake).

When her daughters, Rose and Sophia, were just 17 months old, he made the decision to write birthday cards for them.

The girls’ recent fourth birthday marked the opening of one of these special cards.

In it, their father reminded them that they would start school soon and urged them to take care of each other.

The letter written in English read: “Dear Sophia. Happy fourth birthday. Now they will be big girls and soon they will go to school. Be brave and take care of your sister. Lots of love, daddy.”

The beginning of the disease

Victoria, owner of Stanton Miller Recruitment, was at the gym when Keenan returned early from a business trip and told her they needed to go to the hospital.

There they received the news that a tennis ball-sized lesion had been discovered on the left side of his brain, in the center of the frontal lobe.

Despite the challenges, the couple decided to go ahead with their plans to start a family after initial treatments were successful.

(Keep reading: Computational model predicts growth of deadly brain tumor.)

The transformation of the tumor

Shortly after the girls turned six months old, in December 2019, Keenan began having trouble speaking and, after a series of examinations, they discovered that his tumor had transformed into a glioblastoma.

In March 2020, they were informed that he had less than a year to live. However, he struggled for nine months before passing out one night in November 2020. He was taken to a specialized medical care center, where he died the next day.

Future diagnosis of tumors

In Keenan’s honor and in an effort to help others dealing with brain tumors, his wife joined ‘Brain Tumor Research’ to launch a research funding campaign.

The charity is calling on the government to earmark £110 million to increase national investment in brain tumor research to £35 million a year by 2028.

Brain tumors are the leading cause of death for cancer in children and young people under 40 years of age, yet they have only received 1% of national spending on cancer research since 2002.

Victoria hopes that this campaign raise awareness and support to brain tumor research and improve treatment options and find a cure.

Video: A woman played the violin while undergoing surgery for a brain tumor

SOPHIA SALAMANCA GOMEZ
DIGITAL SCOPE WRITING
TIME

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