‘I can’t sit and watch my pickney die’ Dad fights to save daughter from rare cancer

For four years, Westmoreland father Nickel Green says he has lived in a cycle of hope, delay and worsening fear as he waits for a medical referral he believes could save his nine-year-old daughter’s life.

His daughter, Nickkara Green, was diagnosed in 2023 with Stage IV Alveolar soft part sarcoma (ASPS) — a rare and aggressive cancer that affects soft tissue and, in some cases, spreads slowly but persistently to vital organs.

According to the US National Cancer Institute, soft tissue sarcomas account for only about one per cent of all cancers, and ASPS represents an extremely small fraction of those cases, with roughly 80 diagnoses annually in the United States.

For Green, however, the statistics are secondary to the daily reality of watching his child endure pain he says has become progressively harder to manage.

“I have been waiting from she was about five and mi have to say, ‘Oh God, mi can't just sit down and watch my pickney dead’,” Green said. 

He said it appears the doctors do not know what to do, and suggest that they probably should send him overseas. Recently, in a bid to get help for his daughter, Green posted a video on TikTok, which attracted hundreds of thousands of views. 

According to him, it reached St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in the United States. St Jude is known for treating childhood cancers and paediatric diseases. 

“I finally get to St Jude, the video guh viral,” he said. “I just feel like cry and they are telling me everything to do now. They are going to write a letter, so now I am looking for embassy dates,” he said.

Green said Nickkara first began complaining of severe abdominal pain when she was about five years old. At the time, he said, repeated visits to doctors did not reveal anything serious.

“They just gave her Panadol and little DPH, that's it,” he said.

However, Green said he knew something was seriously wrong when the pain intensified and the cries got more excruciating.

“I was wondering why the baby belly a pain her so. One time she got up in the middle of the night crying for pain and I gave her little tea. Then one morning I made her breakfast and she vomited, and so I brought her to a different doctor," he recalled. 

That visit, he said, marked the beginning of a difficult heartbreaking journey for himself  and his daughter after the doctor noticed a concerning swelling during the examination.

“I thought it was a hernia because I didn't know about any cancer,” he said.

He said the child was immediately referred to the Savanna-la-Mar Public General Hospital, marking the beginning of what would become a long medical journey across multiple facilities in western Jamaica. From there, he said they were transferred to Cornwall Regional Hospital in St James, but answers remained elusive.

He also began requesting an overseas referral early in the process, believing local facilities did not have the capacity to treat the condition.

“The baby just a bawl a bawl,” he said, adding  that her painful cries can be heard from a couple of feet away.

Green said he was told at one point that treatment overseas could require funds he simply did not have.

“One nurse tell me say $30 million upfront,” he said. “Only if me a scammer or drugs man me could find that. I am just a contractor,” Green said.

Now, as the days stretch on, Green lives in a painful in-between — buoyed by the potential opening of a door through St Jude yet weighed down by the uncertainty of what comes next. His main focus is securing treatment for his daughter, who he described as jovial and kind.

“She says she wants to be a doctor and I just wish she recovers from cancer. I just want the best for my daughter,” Green said.