The Silver Lining of One Amazing Dad's Cancer Diagnosis

POPSUGAR: Tell me a bit about how this started. What were some of the thoughts that went through your head when you received this prognosis, and how did it lead to your napkin notes?

Garth Callaghan: I was writing notes to my daughter, Emma, well before my first diagnosis. But back then it wasn't a thing, it was just me writing a note to her and putting it in her lunch bag every day. It was a way for me to provide some encouragement on a daily basis and a way for her to connect with me while she was away at school. It was just something we did to kind of to be special in our family.

Then when Emma was in sixth grade, I was diagnosed with cancer for my first time. I won't share the exact thoughts that went through my head, because they're definitely not appropriate for a general audience, but I freaked out. I had no history of cancer in my family, I wasn't sure what to do, I had no idea what kidney cancer was about, I hadn't really heard of kidney cancer before.

Fortunately, I had a great medical team and we corrected that with surgery and they kind of patched me up and said, "You don't have cancer, move along, have a great life." A few months after that diagnosis, I saw that my daughter had been saving the napkin notes I had been writing and she had been putting them into a composition book. I looked and I saw line after line after line of my notes where she has ripped the words away from the napkin. I looked at it and I thought, "This is something that we should share. We should try to figure out a way to share this with other parents. Maybe some moms and dads could gain some inspiration and write notes to their own kids." So, I asked her if it was OK if we shared it and we started sharing it on social media. What I didn't anticipate is that a few months after that, I would be diagnosed with cancer again — a completely different and unrelated cancer. And then again a year after that, and a few months after that. So in the past three years, I’ve been diagnosed with cancer four times.

PS: How old are you?

GC: I'm 45. So I'm definitely an overachiever. And after that third cancer diagnosis, I started to freak out about not making it because my doctors had a very frank conversation with me. They gave me a rough five-year survival rate of eight percent and that means that I won't make it to Emma's high school graduation.

So I grabbed a calendar and counted out how many days there were until she would graduate and wrote out enough napkin notes so that she would have a note every day until she graduated, whether I was here or not.

PS: So you've written a total of how many now?

GC: Outside of the 826, which are in a box kind of there for safekeeping, I've written about 1,500 and then I'm still writing her a new note every day. So the 826 are just there in case. And when the story broke, a couple people asked me if I would be interested in sharing my journey as a parent as well as a cancer patient in a book. I said that would be a great idea because I really want parents to recognize the need to connect with their loved ones and connect with their kids to build deep relationships. And don't wait until the doctor gives you a tough diagnosis before you start doing that.

PS: What would your message be to parents who are, as of now, in good health and hopefully will see their kids well into their own adulthood?

GC: Somebody told me a long time ago, and I wish I could remember who it was, but they shared with me that they didn't think that kids today cared about quality time, but that they really cared about quantity time.

That hit home with me, and I make sure I'm spending as much quantity time with my daughter as physically possible, which is part of what napkin notes are about. Even though Emma's off at school, she's getting some extra time with me even though I'm not there.

PS: How do you come up with all of your ideas?

GC: Sometimes I look to others for inspiration, the greats like Dr. Seuss and Mr. Rogers. Sometimes I pick up something as I read. Just yesterday, I was having a call with a co-worker and she made a comment to me that I loved and I made it into today's note. What she said was, "Effort is between you and you." Emma is an avid athlete and I thought that was a perfect message for her, so I stole my co-worker's quote. I have no shame in doing that, I think it's perfect.

PS: And [the notes] are kind of a range, right? Some are lighthearted, some are more serious in nature?

GC: Yup. As we approach Christmas, I'll start to move into more Christmas ideas. On Halloween, I think I borrowed a quote and kind of changed it up for the day and said, "Dear Emma, We have nothing to fear but fear itself. And spiders. Definitely spiders." And I thought that was a great way to celebrate Halloween.

PS: What has her reaction been to all of this? Especially now that it's gone from being a private thing between the two of you to something that's sort of in the public eye.

GC: I think both of our reactions are literally, "What?!" I still look at myself as the dad who's just writing notes and the dad who has to do household chores and pick up dog poop in the backyard. We're just this average family, and yet we have people coming up to us saying, "You're an inspiration." We had a book signing recently and people asked Emma to sign the book, as well. We're just not used to that type of attention or treatment, so every day brings new surprises to us.

PS: Did you have any hesitation about sharing all of it or were you happy to share with the public?

GC: With my daughter's permission, I did ask first, we're very open as a family and part of that openness was me standing up and saying, "I have cancer," which is a really risky thing in today's world because that can affect a lot of different things. It's one of the reasons why I'm so happy to be a Patients Like Me member, because that's part of the same thing. Me standing up and saying, "This is what I've got going on in my life, here are the side effects, here are the symptoms I have, here are the medicines I'm taking, what can I do to help the next patient?" The whole idea [of the organization] is, how can we better help our medical community and how can we help the patient community treat ourselves? It's very empowering.

You don't have to have a serious illness to donate your medical data and help the cause overall, either. Anyone can participate through Patients Like Me's "24 Days of Giving" campaign.

PS: Does your daughter have any favorite notes or any she has come home and said, "This was really great, Dad," or "This made me laugh," or "This made me cry"?

GC: I'll share her favorite note with you. It reminds her of a time back when she was younger and playing on the playground and it says, "Dear Emma, Remember the time on the jungle gym when your friend Colin looked up at you and said 'I'll rescue you,' and you looked down at him and replied, 'I'll save myself.'? Be that girl, be strong. Love, Dad." That's her absolute favorite one.