SANFLW footballer Teagan Usher’s moving tribute to her ‘miracle man’ dad, John
He’s had seven heart attacks, kidney failure and a deadly leg infection but John Usher has survived it all. And he’s a role model for his daughter as she pursues her dream of playing AFLW.
Teagan Usher runs onto the football field, looks down at the tape wrapped around her wrist and reads the four simple words written there.
It’s one last reminder.
One last drop of inspiration.
One last snap of courage and focus drawn from the 18-year-old’s very own “miracle man”.
Those four words, printed in thick black texta are more than just footy cliches for this rising star of South Australian women’s football.
When it comes to why Teagan is here, why she plays the game she loves and attacks life the way she does, she only has to look as far as that message on her wrist.
“Play like Dad would”.
The man behind those four words, the bloke in the wheelchair watching from the sidelines whenever the doctors let him, is John Usher.
A living, breathing superhero to Teagan, sister Kaylah and Mum, Espe, who embodies all that it means to fight for what matters most.
A fella who has endured a run of illness as astonishing as it should have been deadly, yet who keeps stunning the medicos with his defiant resilience.
In the past 13 years, John has survived seven heart attacks, kidney failure and a leg infection so serious that statistics say the condition kills one in two victims within the first year of diagnosis.
Teagan, a promising talent with Woodville-West Torrens, knows just how lucky she is to still have her Dad to celebrate with today on Father’s Day.
“We (mum, Espe, and sister Kaylah) are like ‘you’re a miracle man’,” Teagan, of Cheltenham, says.
“I always put tape around my wrist and I always put on the inside what I need to do and then on the outside I write ‘play like dad would’.
“Dad has taught both my sister and I not to give up.
“No matter what he’s gone through, that’s his mindset.
“He is my inspiration — day in, day out, inside and outside of sport.”
Yet for all John has done to inspire his family, the 72-year-old insists he’s the one indebted to those closest to him.
“I love my girls and I’ve tried to inspire them to do their best, be there own people, stand up for themselves and I think they’ve done that,” says John, a retired transport manager.
“People keep saying to me, ‘How do you keep going, how do you keep fighting everything?’. “And I say ‘I’ve got two young girls and a wife to look after and who I want to be home with’.
“I guess you could say they are my inspiration, too. If it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t be here today.”
John’s latest health scare, the infection in his legs, started last October and stemmed from bacteria forcing its way into a wound after he scratched his leg with a toenail while sleeping.
The infection, called calciphylaxis, is a serious disease in which calcium accumulates in small blood vessels of the fat and skin tissues.
It causes blood clots, painful skin ulcers and, unless detected early, can lead to death.
John pushed through the painful infection and was on medication until April, when he was admitted to the Royal Adelaide Hospital and took a turn for the worse.
“One night I was at Eagles training and we were in the review room … I got a call from a number and I thought ‘I should probably take this’,” Teagan, who is an apprentice mechanic, says.
“I took the call and it was Dad’s dialysis nurse and she informed me that Dad had a suspected stroke and went into cardiac arrest.
“I broke down in tears and had to leave training straight away.
“After that we sat in the ICU waiting room from about 8pm until 1.30am while Dad was on life support and a breathing machine.
“We were beside ourselves because we didn’t know if we would have to make a decision to turn the life support off.
“We just didn’t know what to do.
“It’s quite confronting when you’re put up to a view like that.
“We were thinking the worst of things and we were sitting down and discussing funeral plans and stuff like that.”
But the next day the Usher family received the news they could have only dreamt of.
“We got a call in the morning and it was the nurse saying he’s off life support, he’s breathing on his own and he’s responsive,” Teagan says.
“We’ve gone, ‘How?”.
Although John was responsive and had recovered from the heart attack, the infection did not appear to be subsiding.
Doctors still only gave him several months to live and said amputating his legs would help prolong his expectancy.
But, true to form, John refused to give up, continued to take his medication, underwent dialysis and moved from hospital to Mount Carmel Residential Care.
During that time, Teagan was playing football for the state under-18s against the Northern Territory.
She earnt selection in the Central Allies team for the under-18 AFLW national championships in June.
John, who lined up with Adelaide Footy League club Seaton Ramblers as a youngster, watched Teagan’s games against the Northern Territory from a wheelchair.
“He absolutely loved watching because he got to see me just put my all in and do everything he would’ve done as a young footballer,” says Teagan, who also plays for SMOSH in the Adelaide Footy League Women’s division one competition.
“After that game finished I ran up to him. He burst out into tears and said ‘I’m so proud of you’.
“We both started crying.”
During the past month, John has been the subject of a new treatment for calciphylaxis
— a spray that dries the skin and causes it to scab and heal. So far, the remedy is showing promising signs.
“He’s lost a lot of his muscle mass in his legs so he’s unable to walk as of yet but he’s starting rehab soon,” Teagan says.
“He got the results that he was completely negative to the calciphylaxis.
“No matter what the doctors say to us about how much time he has left, he just always seems to get through it.”
An interest in sport, particularly Aussie rules, and a collective love for the Port Adelaide Football Club has been a welcome distraction from John’s battle for the Usher family.
“We’ve been going to Port games together since I started walking and I used to fall asleep in Dad’s arms in the grandstand,” Teagan says.
Older sister Kaylah, 21, is “beyond proud” of her father.
“He’s a warrior,” she says.
“He doesn’t stop fighting — never has, never will.”
Espe, 52, says John’s health issues have made her family stronger.
“It’s been a very traumatic time since John was first diagnosed with kidney failure,” Espe says.
“The girls have handled it so well and we’ve really stuck together and you have to, you have to really support each other.”
The family was planning on celebrating Father’s Day today with a picnic. John, whose treatment means he remains at the nursing home, is on track to return home to his family by Christmas.
daniela.abbracciavento@news.com.au
