The Life of Steven George Dearns

My dad was the greatest man alive, my superhero, my support and my best friend. Cancer has taken away my dad after 15 months of fighting this horrible disease. It all started when my dad went on a golfing trip with his mates and came back with an injured hip. We thought nothing of it so he went to physiology to get it sorted. A month later physiology wasn't working and we started to wonder what had happened, so dad went to our GP who sent him to get a blood test to see if there was anything happening behind the scenes that we couldn't see. It came back that his hemoglobins was sitting at 54 which is dangerously low which meant he was losing blood somewhere. So they did a scan on his upper and lower bowels which found nothing then had a camera capsule which found x3 tumours bleeding. He then had a MRI scan to see what was happening inside him. Turns out they found further tumours in his small intestines that were bleeding, 40% of his left hip eaten away with cancer which is why he was in pain, cancer in his lungs, 80% of his left kidney had cancer and cancer in his spine. They had to stop the bleeding so operated and removed x5 tumours then why he was in hospital his hip fractured so they had to also replace that.

Prior to the two operations we were requested to attend an appointment at Wellington hospital in the oncology unit. The day came where we met with our oncology doctor Anne O'Donnell and I still remember this day vividly because this was the day I knew I was going to lose my dad sooner than I wanted. She had told us that apart from the small intestine and hip cancer sites, there were three other sites found, in his spine, lungs and kidney. The kidney was the primary cancer and the powerhouse of the other sites. She also told us that it was in his blood and he had a 9-12 month life expectancy. So that day, dad was diagnosed with Stage 4 Terminal Renal (Kidney) Cancer. Everything went well for many months after, we had our hiccups and worries when dad got sent to hospital but everything went downhill after his birthday (July 15th 2020). Dad already had a fractured vertebrae which we were vigilant about, but Dad was declining faster than we had thought. Mid August dad was admitted to Te Omanga Hospice. to try and manage his pain In the week and a half that dad had been in here he had deteriorated majorly to the point where he was sleeping 24/7 and couldn't do anything for himself, couldn't shift himself, couldn't eat, drink, talk, he just lay there with no energy in him.

Dad passed away in Te Omanga Hospice and we cannot stress enough how amazing the teams here were to Dad, Mum and I, with his support, making him comfortable and as pain free as possible. They were also incredible with the support to both Mum and I and making sure we could just cry and let go of all our emotions whenever we wanted. All of the funds raised on this page will be given to the Lower Hutt Te Omanga Hospice as they made dads final days the most comfortable and easiest as he wasn't in a lot of pain like he was in hospital or at home. Mum and myself wanted to do this page because due to Covid-19 they have been unable to do any fund raising. Please donate as they do an amazing job. Thank you to the team and individuals that helped us the most you were all amazing.