Sometimes there are things in our life that are unexpected and can change the direction of our journey in an instant. Some of those things are going to have so minor an impact that we hardly notice the change. However, there are also those things that can turn our world upside down within seconds. For a young lady named Shayla Mitchell, she, unfortunately, fell victim to such a tragic life-changing event.
Shayla had not been feeling well. At first, she didn’t think much of it, since it was just a cough. But, soon, the young teen discovered that she wasn’t able to shake the cough. So the next day, she asked her dad, Tom, to take her to the doctor. Shayla thought that maybe she had a sinus infection.
The next day, her dad picked her up from school, and the two stopped to have a bite to eat before her appointment. Little did they know that it would be the last meal they were to enjoy together before learning world-shattering news.
The doctor gave Shayla a routine examination, but when he came back into the room with news of her test results, he had a strange look on his face.
Shayla knew immediately that she was suffering from something much more severe than a sinus infection.
As it turned out, roughly two-thirds of her chest was being occupied by a large cancerous tumor. In fact, the mass was so large that it even caused one of her lungs to collapse.
Later that night, Shayla went out to dinner with her dad, hoping to take her mind off of things for a while. However, the two now had to dine in a room located in the pediatric oncology unit of Fairfax Hospital. Tom shared his thoughts on the meal in a popular Facebook group.
“We didn’t know it at the time, but we would wind up having our next 450 meals in that hospital, as well as hundreds and hundreds of additional meals over the next couple of years.”
When Doctors diagnosed Shayla with stage 4 Hodgkin’s disease, the teen was terribly afraid.
Before Tom sat and explained what was happening, he had stopped and bought a bracelet for each of them at a nearby Indian art store. And that’s when he broke the news that no father should ever have to say to his daughter.
“I talked with her about everything and nothing. I talked with her about the wind and about feathers and I talked with her about cancer. We talked about the word ‘brave.’ We held each other very tight for a very long time. I’m pretty sure we both cried, and we promised each other that no matter what, we would be brave; together we would get through this.”
The heartbroken father put the bracelet on his little girl’s wrist. And then he told her the following:
“That I would wear my bracelet until the day she was cancer free. That for every single night she had to stay in the hospital I would stay with her. That as long as she stayed brave, so would I.”
Tom and his daughter went on to spend hundreds of nights in the hospital and at the chemotherapy clinic. Shayla had to endure many tests, including radiation and chemotherapy. She even suffered heart failure soon after her treatments began.
“…her poor little heart quit working, so they had to install a pacemaker/defibrillator into her chest.”
Tom knew he had to be strong for his little girl even as he held her hair while she threw up, and then her hand when her hair fell out.
The two experienced the gambit of emotions during that time but still managed to stay brave for each other.
One day Shayla experienced something terrifying on her way to the car, and her dad had no idea what to do.
“Help me Dad! IT’S SHOCKING ME! …IT’S SHOCKING ME!”
It turned out that the pacemaker installed to keep her heart beating was malfunctioning, causing the unit to shock her repeatedly.
All Tom could do was grab onto his daughter and hold her tight.
“But I refused to let go. I just held her as tightly as I could and just like that. it stopped shocking her as quickly as it had started, and we rushed to the hospital. It turns out the manufacturer of this device had to recall thousands of them like brakes on a Chevy.”
Shayla had to endure replacement surgery, failed bone marrow transplant, and many more painful procedures. However, eventually, doctors told them that there was nothing more they could do.
“How in the world was I supposed to have this conversation with my darling daughter? How in the world was I going to be brave enough to tell my daughter she was going to die? … I knew I had to be brave for HER! I did of course have that conversation with her, and as unbelievable as this may sound it turned out to be the most amazing, beautiful, magical, wonderful conversation I’ve ever had in my entire life, and one that I hope you NEVER EVER have to have…”
After Tom finished speaking, she leaned over and whispered, “Am I still brave, Dad?” He looked at his daughter and realized how much she had been fighting. But then it occurred to Tom that Shayla wasn’t just brave for herself; she was also fighting for her dad as well.
Within a few days, Shayla Mitchell passed away. Tom knew that his daughter’s hard battle was finally over, and now she could rest.
Tom’s heart was heavy with grief.
But the father knew that he needed to do something to honor his daughter’s memory. So he started the STILLBRAVE Childhood Cancer Foundation to help other children like his daughter.
There’s no question that Shayla’s smiling down on her father.
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