Scar

• Georgia Mcpeake, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2018

I’m an eight year old girl, with a mother, father, a seventeen year old brother called Tom and a six year old brother named Josh. We live happily in Goolwa in a large brick house with a river and beach views. We have a good income from Dads job, and Mum stays at home. On weekends and during school holidays we go camping. But then everything changes within a matter of days.
My Dad was home from truck driving for the next couple of weeks, because he works four weeks on with the weekends off and two weeks off. He’d been doing this for pretty much as long as I can remember. So he was home for two weeks and had got what we thought was gastro and still had it eight to ten days later, but it had worsened so he had called into work sick.
Mum had gone to the shops with Nanna in Adelaide, and the boys had gone to the BMX Park. They all had been gone for about two hours, when Dad started turning blue because he was vomiting too much. He tried to call me to come and help him, although it was very faint I just heard him. I came to him at the toilet and took one look at him and became horrified. I told him just to wait there while I go and get the phone to call 000. I call the ambulance, and answer the questions that they ask. They tell me to go stand next to Dad, and make sure he doesn’t pass out.
I do as they say until they arrive. Once they have arrived, I ring Tom to explain to him what has happened and that he needs to come home immediately. When he gets home he rings Mum and informs her that Dad is on his way to the hospital. Mum and Nanna come back from Adelaide straight away and go to the Victor Harbor hospital, where Dad now has a drip, breathing equipment, and is having and ultra sound. The nurses discover that he has a large black thing growing from his kidney. They believe that it might be kidney cancer. They rush him to the Royal Adelaide Hospital.
When he arrives he comes in and they immediately do another ultrasound and, say that they need to get it as soon as possible. Which in his case was straight away. He had emergency surgery to get his kidneys removed. And our long journey had just begun. He gets tubes put into his chest so that he can be dilated whilst his fistula is being developed.
Years of operations and treatment begin. And we move interstate to be closer to a hospital. Mum now works and Dad stays home, and the only times he is away for a few weeks in when he has appointments in Adelaide with his specialist. We have a low income and appreciate the days we get to go away. After being cancer free for five years he is now at the top of the national kidney transplant list.