Jnr Furphy Literary Awards

One of our amazing year 7 students at McGuire, Tylah O’Brien, was shortlisted for the Junior Furphy Literary Awards with her personal narrative ‘Hope’ (which she completed initially as a CAT for English). Although she did not win, we would like to acknowledge her fantastic effort and share her story. 

Ashley Murphy

English & Humanities

McGuire Campus

Hope

Would you save a person’s life that you hardly knew? I didn’t think anyone would do that until it happened. It started on an ordinary day, but little did I know that would be the biggest day of my life. I was hanging with my best friend, Gemma Lindsay. Gemma and I had been inseparable since Grade 2, four years, when this happened. Gemma and her brother were Catholic while her mother was Christian. While I was neither, I often went to church with them. Gemma lived around the corner so any chance I had, I went to her house. Hanging out with Gemma made me happy and took me away from my life at home. 

Dad was sick, he had Kidney Disease, a disease that affects your blood and gets rid of the extra waste in your body. Dad’s kidneys weren’t doing what they needed to do and were therefore failing. He was diagnosed when my brother was one year old and I was about 2. We knew there was something wrong with dad but we didn’t know much about it as it was to difficult to explain to a child. When we were kids, we could do lots of things with dad because he had only just been diagnosed and it wasn’t a big deal.  But as we got older and my sister was born, Dad couldn’t do everything he did with us with her because his kidneys were stopping him. He spent lots of time in hospital and away from us. He also spent a lot of time at work, so we didn’t see him much. 

Gemma and I were sitting on the trampoline having a laugh attack when I realized “I forgot dad has dialysis tonight.” Dialysis is a machine which replaces your bad kidneys while you can’t get new ones. He went to our local hospital every second night almost as soon as he left work, so we didn’t get to see him often. A year on dialysis and dad was given the opportunity to do dialysis at home. He could own his own machine. The down side was it made lots of noise at night and dad had said he slept uncomfortably with the machine connected to him he was also on the machine every night. He had to take the machine wherever he went and it was heavy and noisy so we didn’t travel much. Working was hard because he stayed away a lot of nights and had to take the machine with him. 

Gemma then replied with, “Oh, did you know my mum might be giving your dad a kidney?” That’s the big jaw dropper line that got us on the front page of the newspaper (literally), the amazing thing was Sharon, Gemma’s mum, hardly knew my family. To be completely honest I never thought my dad would get better and never imagined what our life would be like if he got better. My heart skipped multiple beats as I stuttered “WHAT!” She then repeated “my mum is giving your dad a kidney. I think we sat there for five minutes in silence, I needed time to process this. I knew that Sharon was nice, but not this nice. She hardly knew my mum let alone my dad. 

It was Melbourne Cup Day and lots of people had come to my house to celebrate so I waited for them to leave before I approached my parents. “Did you know Sharon is giving dad a kidney?” I asked. Their replies were completely different. “I know isn’t that great?” My mum replied. But Dad’s reaction was the exact same to mine “What!” Dad couldn’t believe it, he told us he would refuse his offer, but we all knew he wouldn’t. 

After long discussions it was confirmed that Sharon would be giving dad a kidney but it wasn’t that easy, first that had to find out if they were even a match. The thing that made me happiest was that Sharon hates surgeries and needles but still she did all of it to save my dad. 

The big day came, the day that would decide if dad would be getting a kidney from Sharon. They had their appointment together and came back with exciting news. While Sharon wouldn’t be directly giving dad a kidney she would still be giving someone a kidney. Dad had been matched with another donor so he to was still getting a kidney. Even though dad isn’t getting the kidney from Sharon she still named his kidney Shazza (a nickname for Sharon)

Dates had been discussed for what day the transplant would occur before it was finally decided it would be on the 17th January 2019. A couple of weeks after the date was decided we were offered the Emorgo Kidney Transplant apartment. It would save us thousands of dollars on accommodation, so we thankfully said yes. 

One week before the operation, 10th January 2019, one day before my birthday, dad had an appointment to make sure everything was ok. unfortunately, it wasn’t and we drove him to Melbourne St Vincent’s hospital, 2 hours away. That night my birthday party occurred and without my best friends their to support me I think I would have been pretty upset. 

Two days later we drove back to Melbourne to go and see our new home for the next couple of months. The apartment was absolutely luxurious and the location was gorgeous. Big colourful paintings coloured the walls. Humungous mirrors scattered in each room and two comfortable double beds. The restaurants surrounding the building were filled with delicious food and the apartment was built in the old Tip Top bakery. Dad had to get used to it because he would be living here for 3 months after the operation for daily checkups. 

The day had come, a life changing day that would be told for decades in our family. Sharon was getting her kidney removed a day before Dad’s transplant. The morning before she went in we went to wish her good luck. Once we went back to Dad’s room I made sure to take a good look at him because he would never be the same again. Everything would change. 

Normally I don’t like change, but this was the best change ever. When we went back to the apartment that night. I couldn’t sleep, I was scared but excited. Tears streamed down my face as I fell into a deep dream. Everything would be over soon and I had one person to thank.

The biggest day of my life arrived, it would have been even bigger for dad. It was hard seeing dad go in to surgery especially when my sister started crying, but I wanted to stay strong for dad. I was so grateful and glad that this would be over. But then my mind overfilled with all the bad things that could happen. I remembered if you have a positive mindset, positive things will happen. He was in surgery for 7 hours, that was the longest seven hours of my life. The waiting, the wondering. Unfortunately, the night after surgery we weren’t allowed to go see him but my mum was so we were looked after by my aunty. The whole event felt like one movie, one really long movie. The next day we went to see him, I had over heard that he felt really unwell but I could tell he was trying not to show it in front of us. 

Dad was allowed out of hospital a week later while he wouldn’t be allowed out much we at least didn’t have to travel to the hospital every day. Mum, my siblings and I went back home after 2 weeks of living in Melbourne. We traveled back to see dad every weekend though. A few months later dad was finally allowed home, while you may think the story ends here a lot happened in a space of a year. Nothing happened for a while in this story until Dad’s brilliant idea. Since the Emorgo Kidney Transplant House saved us we decided to give back. A kidney night would occur on the 17th January 2020, there would be auctions and raffles to win. Unfortunately, kids weren’t allowed to come not even Gemma and I which was disappointing but lets rewind a bit. 

August 2019, my dad was asked to be featured on our local news and newspaper. Although Gemma and I weren’t asked to come along our parents insisted. The next day we were on the front page of the newspaper. Everyone I met always thought our story was an inspiration but I never really thought it was until now. 

Each year our local hospital would host a kidney walk. How many laps we did of our local lake would be how much money we raised. Every year a big red crowd surrounded the lakes. Many people didn’t know what for though. This year was our second time going and it was great. I met lots of people who had seen me in the newspaper and met the nurses that helped dad. We had a barbeque and all together it was just a great day. 

We never traveled and when I mean never, I mean the fact that I haven’t left the state in 8 years. We went camping a lot but still there was always a risk of dad getting infected so when the doctors agreed to dad going on a 30-day trip to Queensland, 9 months after the operation, we were shocked but it was an amazing experience and we got to see dad swim for the first time in 3 years. 

When we got home dad got super stressed, he was juggling many hours of work (making up for the time when he was away) and trying to organize the kidney night. I hated to see him like this but he was doing something amazing, so I decided to help. Gemma and I pleaded to come but in the end,  we got a sleepover while they were at the fundraiser. 

The day came and I went to the venue to help set up which took multiple hours, Gemma and I were practically dead by the time we had cleaned the windows and now we had to put the covers on 200 chairs then came the dilemma that we didn’t have enough black covers so then we had to take them all off and put the white ones on. We did a few other things and by the time we got home it was 2:00 which left mum and dad one hour to get ready and be back at the venue to do a few other jobs and start welcoming the guests. They were so excited but nervous, they kept asking me if they looked good. I told them they looked great and to my surprise they believed me. This day also marked 1 year since the transplant so it was a big day for our family as well. The night was filled with raffles, speeches and even a celebrity guest. Overall people partied through the night and met new people. Dad only wrote his speech that day but I heard it was amazing and there’s no doubt about that. Overall they raised 24,000 dollars which really just shows if you put effort into a night like this you can have fun and raise lots of money. 

Lately the world has been having some problems due to the Covid-19 pandemic and its really scary knowing that my dad has a possibility of dying but dad is like the god of Covid-19 making sure he has good hygiene and staying away from people who are sick, he is over reacting a bit. We all follow his rules to keep him safe though. While this isn’t the end of my story it is the end of this one just remember:

There Is Always Hope