After their father died, he left behind 30 years’ worth of birthday cards for his twin daughters. The girls are getting sweet birthday wishes from their father.
Nick Keenan from Lindfield wrote future birthday cards for his daughters Rose and Sophia when they were only 17 months old. This was a sweet thing to do.
The father of two was dying from a brain tumor, but he still wanted to send his twins birthday messages every year. This is similar to the plot of the famous Cecilia Ahern book “P.S. I Love You!, which was made into a movie starring Hilary Swank”.
The girls just opened the cards he sent them for their fourth birthday. In them, he told them they’d be going to school soon and to take care of each other.
He died sadly at the age of 34 in November 2020, nine months after he found out that his tumor had turned into glioblastoma, a type of cancer that spreads quickly.
Nick was found to have an astrocytoma, a common brain tumor, the size of a tennis ball in 2015. He had been having shooting pins and needles in his right arm for weeks.
He had two surgeries to remove parts of the tumor, radiotherapy, infusion and oral chemotherapy, cannabis on prescription, and a number of natural treatments.
Victoria, Nick’s wife, said, “Nick was everyone’s rock, and he was mine, too.
‘He was incredibly strong and went to work every day of his radiotherapy and chemotherapy, which I was impressed by.
Even though he was going through much bigger things, he was still able to help me through IVF like any good husband would. Never was it about him.
“As he was dying, he comforted others, and for the first 30 years of Rose and Sophia’s lives, he wrote them birthday cards.”
He wanted to be with them in spirit while they celebrated their birthdays without him.
“I hope it will help them understand where he was in his life at that time.”
Nick came home from a work trip early and told Victoria that he had to go to the hospital. Victoria was at the gym.
The 35-year-old said, “I knew something was wrong when I walked into the room and saw Nick crying.”
“They sat me down and told me that they had found a tumor the size of a tennis ball in the middle of his frontal lobe on the left side of his brain.
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Nick’s surgery and the treatments that followed (radiotherapy and chemotherapy) went so well that he and Victoria chose to go ahead with their plans to have a child.
Victoria said, “We just kept living our normal lives and thought we were winning, so we decided to try IVF.”
Then, in December 2019, when our girls were only six months old, Nick noticed that his speech had become slurred.
“We talked to the doctor and went back in after Christmas.
I had a strange feeling that it was going to be our last Christmas, so I invited everyone to come stay with us and made it the biggest party ever.
“In March 2020, we found out that his tumor had turned into a glioblastoma, and we were told he probably had less than a year to live.”
Nick lived for nine months after that news.
Nick got more treatment and was being considered for a clinical study when he was told there was nothing more that could be done.
In November 2020, Nick passed out at home one night. He was taken to a nearby hospital, where he died the next morning.
Victoria said, “My parents dropped everything to take care of the sleeping girls, and I slept in Nick’s bed at the hospice, right next to his mother.”
a s s I… He didn’t know that he went to the hospice and died at 4 a.m. the next day.
“I got home at 6 a.m., washed up, and took care of our 17-month-old daughters, even though I knew daddy wasn’t with us anymore.”
After Nick was told what was wrong, Victoria got him a miniature dachshund puppy. This dog, named Poppy, died of a brain tumor six months after Nick did.
“I just couldn’t believe it. They were inseparable, and I think she was sent to look after him, so she went with him,” said Victoria, who is now asking people to sign a plea for a charity.
She is working with Brain Tumor study to get 100,000 signatures on its petition to get more money for study. This will hopefully lead to a debate in parliament.