Help us move forward in life without our dad Darren Abram

Hi, our names are Gracie, Hannah and Brady Abram and we are starting this fundraiser on behalf of our family.

As many of you had heard, our dad was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer in January of this year. He fought hard but lost his battle this week at a young age of 46. It was the saddest day of our lives having to say goodbye to our father. Our dad was one of the most kind hearted humans you’ll ever encounter. With the immediate future unknown we’ve started this go fund me as a way to take the stress of bills that piled up during his battle with cancer, for upcoming immediate expenses and to assist us three kids to continue to move forward in our lives to reach the goals dad wanted for us.

Dad has faced unexpected health challenges in recent years which we believed was the end of surgeries and pain; then the sudden disclosure of an aggressive cancer diagnosis brought unimaginable strain to our dad, Darren, and our family. Dad over a couple of years ago had a very large hernia that needed to be surgically removed. Dad had lived with pain for years, because of the hernia, but did his best to ignore the pain and to keep providing for us kids by going to work. But the pain was so bad, he had to have surgery. As soon as the surgery was completed and with only a short recovery time, dad headed back to work to continue his drive to look after us.

In December, dad thought he had a cold and went to see a doctor. They did an x-ray and said his sinuses were plugged and told he had a sinus infection. He proceeded to get antibiotics to clear it up. The antibiotics were not working, so he went back and the doctors gave him another type of antibiotic, then steroids, but nothing was working. Then pain was getting so bad, and was affecting his vision so mom insisted that he went to emergency in January. While there the doctors did a CT scan and discovered the mass had grown rapidly. Dad from that day continue to get progressively worse, he was in unbelievable pain, and we were on a list to await surgery and numerous consultations. He eventually lost sight in both eyes and had difficulty to do even the simplest things in life. He was then bumped to begin treatment and we were told if we didn’t, they didn’t think he would make it to Easter. But he pushed through all the pain and fought as hard as he could. Last week dad had chest pains, collapsed and was rushed to the hospital, where he went through major open-heart surgery to remove blood clots. During surgery dad had a major stroke and was put on life support, as a family we never left his side, but the time came and the doctors had to take him off life support.

Dad has always put us first; he has worked hard to provide and take care of us three kids. He has always been there for our family, always taking on any extra shift at work so he could provide for us. Our dad had the greatest off the wall sense of humour. He said these weird things, and then about 3 seconds later you would catch the joke. He has made us all laugh for hours with his one liner. Dad loves hockey, really never played, but if the Oilers were winning dad was in his element. Dad was not scared of hard work and pushed us kids to be the best we could be. Dad worked in management for Edmonton Exchanger part of the Boiler Makers Union, the guys he worked with loved dad. After his passing, mom has received so many beautiful messages from his fellow workers. Mom reads us the messages, and we are so proud to know how much dad was loved and respected at work. His high school buddies and close friends also have set up a group chat to share their own stories about their experiences with dad. This shows us how much dad not only meant to us, but all the people he met throughout his short life.

Watching our dad go through what he did was unbearable. Brady is only 16 and Hannah and I are 19 and we are at loss of what we will do without our dad. We all are at an age that a father figure is so necessary and yet now we will not have that guidance and support that we need. Us kids watched our dad decline rapidly, watching dad endure chemo and radiation treatments and suffering through unimageable pain. We would help him get dressed, feed him and tried to offer him as much hope as we could. Mom would set an alarm at regular intervals during the night to make sure dad got his medication and stayed hydrated. Mom took him daily for all his treatments with the help of us kids, as dad couldn’t see any more due to the cancer and needed help to be able to go for his treatments. Mom would cook bone broth and high health foods to assist him to heal and all of us would try to help him eat and drink to keep his strength up. As a family we tried everything to help him get better but unfortunately God had another plan and no matter what all of us did, dad lost the battle.

Life is going to be so different, and when we think of the future like getting married and our dad won’t be there to walk us girls down the isle, or us having our own kids who won’t have their grandpa, or when life throws us curve balls and we won’t have dad to fix it for us; all these thoughts just break our hearts to even think about.

None of us know what is going to happen next and what our future is going to look like without our dad, but we know with a little help from our family, friends it will assist us to take some of the stress off our family so we can focus on healing and moving forward as a family.

Thank you for any support you can give as it would mean the world to us as we navigate this difficult time as a family. Your contribution, no matter the size, will ease up some stress and allow our family to focus on healing.

Thank you for your compassion and support to help our family.

Gracie, Hannah, Brady Abram