Terminally Ill Man Given 1 Week to Live, Fulfills Dying Wish to Marry His Best Friend
Darren Sisk, 47, met his girlfriend Crickett when he saved her grandson from being hit by a car.
Darren’s leg was broken in the accident, but he was able to save the boy’s life. And while he recovered from the injury, he and Crickett became close.
“She was coming to the hospital every day to come see me,” Sisk said. “We became best friends and then became lovers.”
Just five years before, Darren had also overcome Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, and had been in remission ever since.
But 15 years after the cancer and nearly 10 years of being with Crickett, Darren received terrible news.
His radiation treatment of his cancer had caused a perforation in his bowel. Doctors told him that he would have anywhere from six months to two years to live.
Doctors went in to perform surgery to remove the affected bowel and leave whatever healthy bowel they could. Sadly, though, Darren had no healthy bowel left.
Two weeks after their initial estimate of six months to two years, they learned his organs were beginning to fail from the radiation. Darren’s estimated life expectancy plummeted to less than one week.
With so little time left, his family and hospital staff rallied together to fulfill his final wishes. At the top of the list was marrying Crickett.
“I’ve been so worried about her,” he said. “You know, I don’t want her to have to lose everything because I’m gone.”
“So as his bride walked down the hospital hallway in her wedding dress, he could finally say “I’m marrying my best friend.”
And in addition to marrying the love of his life, Darren’s other wish was to live to meet his unborn grandson.
But with the progrssion of his illness, doctors knew they needed to find another way.
They brought in Darren’s daughter, who was due to give birth in just eight weeks, for an ultrasound.
His daughter said the moment was an “emotional” one, and that her dad was excited to see the baby move.
Darren’s family was glad to have the chance to say goodbye to him, and to fulfill just a few of the many wishes he had left for his life.
“What an opportunity, you know. For most people they don’t get this opportunity to say goodbye,” said his daughter.
Darren was soon sent home from the hospital, after there was nothing more doctors could do for him.
In a Facebook post following Darren’s death, Crickett wrote that while she was angry that he was taken from her so soon, she was grateful to be able to spend so much time with him.
“Some days I am angry that you left me here all alone,” she wrote. “Some I wonder what I could have done to fix it. But every day I miss you, you truly are the best man I ever shared my life with a real man love you always.”
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