Karen Ryan – “My Tricast For Dad”

“I found out about OPA first when arranging Dad’s funeral, we wanted donations other than flowers and OPA came up in the search engine.

Then when things settled I knew I was going to do some events in 2024. I wasn’t sure what but I knew whatever I decided to do was going to be in my dad’s name and would raise some money for a charity that had something to do with dad.

So my first thought was OPA because of the funeral and because dad died from oesophageal cancer, I didn’t just choose it though this time I really looked into what OPA was all about to make sure it was the right pick.

Now my Dad and our story.

My Dad was 69 at the time and about a month or so before Christmas was struggling with swallowing, it was getting progressively worse as Christmas came around to the point he had a doctors appointment booked for  after Christmas. Dad, mam, my brother his kids my husband and my kids were all at my house for Christmas dinner. This is when we truly saw how bad my dad was, my dad was struggling so much on eating he couldn’t do it and stepped away and sat in the living room for a time before he conceded and went home bringing his dinner with him because he was still hungry. I say this bit because the Grandkids meant the world to my dad and there is no way if he could help it he would have shown that much pain and vulnerability in front of them let alone us so called kids. As soon as bank holiday was over we were on the case bringing forward the doctors appointment that would start the ball rolling on what would be 9 months of a mindfield of emotions, a maze of medical ups and downs left and rights that was so overwhelming. During this time my brother and my mother were the main care givers. My brother got himself clued up with every obstacle we hit to a point where even he was giving ideas to paramedics. We were alone or at least that is how we felt, the only input we seemed to get was when we were in the hospital, at home it was just us dad and dad’s feeding tube, the only time we saw anyone outside of hospital was those last few weeks and them nurses were amazing. To our family we believe my brother Mark’s endeavour kept my Dad with us for much longer. Because of this though my brother struggled in away after dad died that maybe he wouldn’t have had he not had that huge burden. We get on with things since dad passed away on 29/09/23 it is hard with good days and bad days but the beauty is we have each other my mum, brother, sister Angela, my husband and all the 6 Grandkids help each other through. I think if only we had found OPA before Christmas, who knows how different things might have been. We might have found prognosis earlier, or at the very least the journey would have been smoother for all of us, we had laughs and made good memories but we might have had more laughs along the way. So I want to shout it from the roof tops so if at least one other family finds you “OPA” along their journey, it might give them help that we missed out on.

I am doing the
-Manchester 100 mile bike ride.
-Aintree racecourse half Marathon.
-Manchester Half Marathon.

Karen Ryan is fundraising for OPA Cancer Charity (justgiving.com)

All for OPA because awareness breathes knowledge, power and the ability to change or help something/someone before it’s too late.”

– Karen Ryan