The Common Touch - The Jake Bailey Story (Full Official Documentary)

we're actually going to have a change in the program sorry mr. Chapman our senior monitor Jake Bailey's been able to come to prize-giving he can't stay for long so I'm going to invite Jake to make his address now if Jake can't get through it all I'll I'll take his speech off of me and continue it on [Applause] [Music] I wrote a speech and then the week before I was due to deliver that speech they said you've got cancer [Music] [Music] Chris [Music] I don't know I school was an interesting time for me I didn't always feel like I fell in to well I always wanted to be the kid who was sitting with the adults or didn't always want to play with the other kids so and it sort of shone through his personality as he got older he was described as having a young yet on all the shoulders and in a way he was like a mini adult from a very young age I remember him going to preschool in school and being a little bit surprised by the other children who would dress as animals or superheroes and he would find that quite surprising [Music] when I was seven years old my parents split up and I spent half my time with my dad half my time with my mom and I've always both been really huge parts of my life and I've been really lucky to have a half brother and a half sister one from each parent [Music] [Music] hello long contractions that have been three minutes how're you feeling right okay the secret honey cleanse me when I've reflected with them and what it was like for him to come from a family with a parent separated he has an incredibly positive outlook on us I was very concerned obviously that it would have a profound impact on him and not necessarily a positive one but when he talks about that experience which and I can be really painful for a number of children he only ever talks about the positive things that came out of it and I think that indicates exactly the sort of person he is while you're trying to write down the time and I think initially when Jake first her that he was getting another sibling probably a little bit of a shock I mean we just did everything we could to get him together as much as possible basically yeah he liked to help out and he was a good role model [Music] I ended up going to crush at West High School as it was sort of a last minute change just about because Christchurch boys high really fettered with my values and how I saw myself as a person it's called a long history very inclusive school great sense of community and an incredibly strong sense of belonging amongst the boys when he went through boys high I I think he was a really committed student I don't know that he applied himself academically as fully as he could've I spend most of my time working on the academic side of things I came and two boys hi after having been hit at my last school and I remember in year nine people were joking and saying you know you're gonna be hit by here as well and I thinking absolutely not no way this is a school of one and a half thousand boys almost and you know my year group of about 300 kids so not only was that a had a much bigger pond to be a very small efficient but it was a really incredible incredible selection of guys who are in the school really am I actually meet Jake when he was named as a monitor and the boys went away on the monitors camp you know I felt really fortunate to have even been sick there's a monitor that was a group of guys who were exceptional and I didn't interview Jake after that before the position of senior monitor hey taxi taxi hey feel like yeah that a 15 to 20 minute interview as to the other candidates and then he called me one afternoon a few days later and said would you like to be senior monitor next year and I still remember the feeling of come the blood draining from my face and my stomach churning it was like it was it was a pretty huge responsibility and I was really excited for it but at the same time I knew this but I mean that's a role with huge commands huge respect and it's something which needs to be you know handled to the best of your ability and to be done to a certain standard and I was I was concerned that I want to be able to do it justice that I wouldn't be able to do it to the stand that it deserved to be done but I was I was excited of what was to come still [Music] so about September I started getting some pain in my wisdom teeth in my jaw and it started out it started out quite minor and quite innocent and then progressively got worse as time went on we weren't sure what it was but they thought it was probably just a sec of inflammation or infection from the impacted wisdom teeth it's the long and complicated story but the gist of it is that in the meantime while waiting to have my teeth removed I started losing a lot of weight I dropped about 10 kgs and about 10 days he was really really sick and it's probably the only time where I've moved a chair into his bedroom and had to keep an eye on him he didn't he was in a terrible condition but we didn't know exactly what it was and he started vomiting blood and then finally after I started throwing up blood I was admitted and to the acute medical assessment unit at Christchurch Hospital from there there was a huge number of tests that I went through and I remember going with him to get the kidney biopsy done and as we were going up and the left he was just screaming I'm dying I'm dying and as a result of a bone marrow aspirate a kidney biopsy a gum biopsy an ultrasound CT scan an MRI scan I was taught that I had stage 4 bukistan much Cannes lymphoma presenting and my kidneys my pancreas my eye sockets my nasal passages my jaw my bone marrow spinal fluid brain lining I think that's all over I haven't memorized them all year I feel them for most deadly susceptible to treatment with chemotherapy because it grows so fast it grow so rapidly and in some cases the tumor can double in size and 24 to 48 hours so it can get very big I mean that's that's like science fiction and isn't it that's a horrible thing to have going on I remember thinking imagine sitting in the room with the doctors in there telling you there's something really serious is happening to her I mean yeah just two days later I was in that room we entered back into the room and he's in terrible pain still and there's a lot of drugs going into the system and my initial reaction was just run over and hold him and start crying obviously and he said mum don't cry mum don't cry if you're gonna cry you have to get out and I said all right I won't cry I won't cry but I couldn't stop it for a while oh I leave the room I find my phone there worries and explain to that see it's bad Winton I found I walk past him in a corridor just sobbing down the phone and I walked out of the hospital and across the road to the Pegasus arms you seem like a really good idea at the time but instead just had some really bad news and it's really ugly I said can I have a quadruple vodka and I said actually we don't sell quadruples it's illegal so I said can I have two doubles and they said you okay so I took the two double tapped into one dr. Barry said thank you and that gave me the courage to as I walked back to just regain my composure because I knew I had to be there for him it was absolutely essential that I put my own feelings aside and if he didn't want me crying around him and I understood that because it's I've seen my mother cry and it breaks your heart when your mother's upset so by the time I got back I had some Dutch courage under my belt and I managed didn't evac Wray in front of them through the whole process again but there are a number of times where things are getting pretty eerie and we thought could have gone belly-up and I wanted to cry but yeah I learned a lot about breathing through when you want to cry or when you're terrified just breathing through it and being there for the other person essentially smokers know I remember thinking I just couldn't basically be a life without him and how would I would we carry on and you know do the fun things it would always done you know you relate holidays and we spend a lot of time at the lake and you know just playing and just the thought of you know carrying on I guess everyone would that it was the thought of carrying on without him being there was pretty much unbearable yeah I don't have anyone to picture what my parents were going through it was obviously so tough on I'm and dad and with my girlfriend I called her in and I actually said you know in a combination of not knowing what to do and being on some pretty strong pain medication sort of said you know the doctors have told me what's wrong but I'm not sure if I should tell you and look on her face was like you know what and so I kind of went oh yeah so I've got cancer and that stage weird but I only been dating for ten days when I was diagnosed and so I said to her you know it's not fear on you it's not what you signed up for definitely ten days ago and it's not what you even would have expected and so I said look just get out of here you know you'd run for the hills because no one would blame you for doing that and that's you know it's not a bad thing to do and you know she said no and she said no we'll get through it together and that was I know that was a huge point on it for me because that was you know that was a real it was a common turning point otherwise for so many different things [Music] again it's long run with Jack so it was really important that I was there for him and just I was always quiet you can really share my emotion to Jake which I found quite hard because I had other people that I had to wait on but yeah lots of fun anyway so each other it was always really nice going to see him even I was still sort of like terrible to go see what he was going through and see him go downhill wouldn't stop but it was always I told my mates in another terrible way which is kind of funny looking back on him but I literally just dropped him to Facebook group chat I didn't I you know I've kind of bided my time slightly because I didn't want to tell anyone I didn't want anyone to know and so about 25 minutes before it was released through crochet was hi I I wrote a big message and just paste them to group chat and to a couple of group chats and you know kind of hope that messages we keep scrolling so I had kind of read you know what are we doing this weekend guys are there something like someone or others house hi guys I've got cancer and I just really hoping I was gonna keep scrolling but it turns out once you once you put that in group chat people actually pick up on it quite quickly there was a state of shock for the school that's the obvious tragedy surrounding that news of of cancer and also the fact that it was someone as prominent and school community there was a shattering obviously so which did buckle a performer with chemotherapy the the principles behind chemotherapy aren't really all that clever basically we poison the patient we expect the patient to survive the disease to die as I'm supposed to happen later there's a wee bit cleverer than that because we've got a lot of experience and there's a lot of evidence paying the particular combinations of drugs that we know are effective in the treatment of certain different kinds of cancer I remember um Lyman being do chemotherapy day after day thinking to myself you know the end of this I'm never gonna boss you around again I'm never gonna tell you what to do if you don't want to go to uni whatever it's up to you because after what he would what after what he went through I just nice thought he's you can just to take his own life from here he doesn't eat meat give him advice but after not after the punishing treatment like there [Music] the morning of the speech I'd had my first and Ruthie correspond chemotherapy and that had taken a toll on me I'd had quite a bad headache from a lumbar puncture on top of that I had even was there from chemo anyway so it was to be fair I was on and off quite a bit that day there were times when I was certain I'd go into it and there were times when I was so scared that I wasn't going to make it there and even right up and it led up to it my family and they really afternoon bought in my blazer and it's my school uniform and a razor for me to shave and I said you know I've got to do this and I got out of bed and I started shaving and I got about halfway through it and the sheer exhaustion on my body from doing it caused me to be sick and you know I sat on the side of my beard being second it was Becker and I thought there's no way that I can do this and there was a nurse that came and the one nurse who really is responsible for me having done the speech and in a lot of ways I give full credit to her for that and she knows who she is so she came in and she said are you gonna do it and I said look I can't I can't do it and she said okay that that's fine but I just don't want you to regret it [Music] and I see is to myself okay yeah I'll have another crack and I got up and I finished shaving and I got through and I thought well I've done that one step down and I'm just gonna put my uniform on so I started getting dressed and my uniform was sort of draped over me I really fell for them in putting putting bits and pieces of it on it was designed to fit me when I was 15 kgs heavier I mean I was just a skeleton I was a shell of my former self at that point and so I got it on and just the exhaustion of getting dressed maybe I'd be stuck again and I was back on the side of my beard being second to a backer that she came back in and said are you gonna do it and I said look I really can't do it and at that moment I would have taken that uniform off and I would have got back into bed and I would have laid there and my life would have been completely different to her odors now but she said I just don't want you to regret it and so I said all right sure I think I see the [ __ ] it and I shed a tear or two and I gave her a hug and mama bought the wheelchair around them i sat down and she will be out and I said you know let's do this she willed me through the corridors to the elevators and I remember been in the elevator and I was I was vomiting you know violently so so ill I've never been so sick of my life and she said look you can't do this I'm taking you back and I see it don't take me back just keep wheeling me to the car so she went back to the car and the car was outside dad dad was waiting and I got into the car and lay in the backseat as he drove to the auditorium and my family was all there all around them I remember kind of the strength of that offered me in that moment and I'm so grateful for that because I don't know if I would have been able to do it without there [Music] [Music] and dad will be on will be on to the wings and yeah it was actually there's a secret about that but not very many people know and it's that just I was about to get wheeled on there was a round of applause as mr. Hill said that I'd be there and it's just as the round of course started I leaned over to dad and said dad I can't do this I want I want to be well on to the stage and I want mr. Hill to read the speech why stuck there and because of the round of applause who didn't hear me and he just crouched down beside me and see it you'll be great and we'll be out and I was like damn I'm doing it now hens that was that was heretic started none of us get out of life alive so be gallant be great be gracious and be grateful for the opportunities that you have the opportunity to learn from the men who've walked before you and those who walk beside you by challenge to each of you and myself is to continue to grow and to develop for the better the future is truly in our hands forget about long term dreams let's be passionately dedicated to the pursuit of short-term goals micro ambitious work with passion and pride on what is in front of us we don't know where we might end up or when it might end up and then I remember I remember bits and pieces of doing the speech it's all a bit of a blur for me I remember the hacker and that was my most powerful things I've ever experienced in my life I remember the school song and that was such a special moment as you know I felt such a strong connection to those those guys there are in you and that moment that I had one and a half thousand men behind me and it was like that this actually really happened a red dreamer I couldn't I couldn't believe that I'd just gone [Music] [Applause] a very special story emerged it was a recording of the Christchurch boys High head boy delivering his speech to his school cries giving what makes this one a little bit different though is that in between writing his speech and then giving it a ten-year-old Jake Bailey was diagnosed with cancer he was told if he didn't get treatment immediately he wouldn't be alive to make that speech so take a look at this remarkable young man yeah it have been a crazy fortnight that's for sure I've been told that I had stage four cancer I had the fastest growing cancer known to man and then the speech starts to get some pretty big attention to have one and a half million views on a video of you in a couple of days was it was something which was pretty pretty a host yeah ah people lining up on the steps at school wanting to speak to me so I could speak to Jake every morning there was one journalist who threatened to come and knock at our door a lot of lot of mail lots of phone calls lots of emails he developed two stalkers one initially who broke into his hospital and one a few year a few months later who came from overseas because she wanted to marry him even when my family couldn't be there or my friends gonna be there or my girlfriend couldn't be there all those messages of support always were and that was that was that little extra bit of support that I meant so much to know that there are people out there who who cared obviously he lost us here and his eyebrows and that was pretty alarming for me to watch at times he'd get out of bed and you could see where he molted for the family the cancer was it was quite a traumatic time and probably the best way to describe it or the easiest way for me would be to show you a poem his brother wrote that he had published and he wrote it while Jake was sick and it was just published this year but I think it outlines exactly what we were all thinking my life is a mirror in my brother's cancer is a Hemmer that smashes against my mirror I can't stop the pieces falling out sometimes I stick them back into place but they just fall out again [Music] [Laughter] I don't think he contemplated stopping the treatment there was one time when he refused to return to the hospital and there was another time when he escaped from the hospital and then there was New Year's Eve we're his friends were all in Queenstown and it was just him and I at home Queenstown was I love thinking about Queenstown was the perfect escape from reality and we were looking at each other it kind of got to six o'clock at night and I could tell that he was pining to be with his friends in for a normal life and I was sitting on the couch at home with my mum as all eighteen year old guys want to be doing on New Year's Eve and I thought this really isn't a fitting end to the year that it's been and so we made a deal that he could take my car and drive to Queenstown as long as he rung me every hour took his temperature before he phoned me and told me what it was called my girlfriend as I was driving down the driveway and said I'm on my way to Queenstown it was surreal it was like you know I hadn't been told I had cancer life went acts being normal and we went in sort of fireworks down the waterfront and did the countdown there and it was it was probably a happiest moment of my life I reckon because it was it was crazy it was everything that I would have hoped for had I not got cancer but it was more as well I don't know where it goes free from here the any of us for me for you but I wish you the very best in your journey and I think you're for being part of mine wherever we go and what if we do may we always be friends and meet again a Europe you know [Applause] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] and tonight we are going to as the first of our next list of prizes awarded new trophy so I'd ask Jake Bailey to come forward and present the Jake Bailey cut for gallantry and Jake wants to say a few words just to explain what this is about Jake I am I won't speak for too long tonight but I am pretty thrilled about how different the speech I'm about to make his compared to one that I made this time last year it shows how much can change the year the last time that I made a speech on the stage I didn't know if I'd love to see the school again I really vividly remember as my dad willed me back out of here and I was I was vomiting into a suck bucket and mustard bone came and held the door for us and I remember the look on his face because I can't forget it and what I read that look was what I read it is was him wondering if he ever see me again and I was certainly wondering if I'd ever see him again I remember looking over my shoulder as dear dad wheeled me off the stage trying to spice a familiar face or a friend in the crowd in case that was the last time that I ever saw them the first three weeks of the treatment were a critical as the aggressive chemo regime attacked the aggressive cancer and my kidneys and my body were caught in the crossfire of that it was day three of chemotherapy when I made that speech last year and at that stage the cancer had the upper hand on me my body was failing me more each day but fortunately none of that actually matters anymore not the statistics or the chances all the memories however much they might hurt that I matter because I'm still here today 364 days on to talk to you tonight and I'm absolutely honored and privileged to be able to do so it's also quite nice to be standing rather than in a wheel chair although I may have recycled the sign saving me apart for outside [Music] my life now is perhaps slightly more settled but completely unchanged in the sense that it is something I could never have pictured at the start of last year it's another case of something I couldn't ever imagine happening and apparently recurring theme over the last 12 months right now I'm based on the Gold Coast full-time with my girlfriend and that works as a great base where to do public speaking across New Zealand and Australia from the environment is everything that I need as I recover it's warm its relaxed and laid-back and I really enjoy it there I've signed a book deal I've worked really hard on the documentary over the past 12 months and I know it's going to be an even bigger year next year but it's been a busy year this year an exciting year and above all it's been a year that I was just grateful to have I'm back tonight to present a new award which the school has honored me by allowing me to donate tonight I will for the first time presently Jake Bailey cup for gallantry for great courage strength and resilience in the face of adversity in a lot of ways it's for moral strength which is something I eerily talked about last time I was on the stage I said we can't all be the best scholar achieving straight excellences or the best sports on the first 15 believe me well we can at times be the best at everything or at anything but we can't choose to have is moral strength moral strength is that about making a conscious decision to be a person who doesn't give up will it be easy to typically circumcision is less arduous I want the moral of this award and of my story to be that when life deals you a terrible terrible thing you have the option to let a [ __ ] you or you can choose to make yourself stronger from it this award recognizes those who steer down adversity and then use it to push themselves forward those who know that bravery isn't when you don't feel fear or pain or sadness but the ability to feel all of those and move forward despite it General George Patton once said I don't measure men's success by how high he climbs but by how high he bounces when he falls this award is for those who have dropped and bounced high with the courage resilience and gallantry I've discussed the inaugural winner of this award with mr. Hill and a film that stands out at the student as he not only shows all of these but he has very strong principles any sticks to these so to the effort in levers I was sure the best did you set sail from this port we have been docked for the past five years may venture far and wide but always with an association to this mighty school Divya 12 was have been selected as martyrs congratulations and welcome to a group of incredible men who will forever leave a mark on you and so whoever out there is to be chosen as senior monitor for 2017 I'll give you the same advice that I gave to Jake three point I don't drink Diesel's and don't get cancer so there's a poem called Earth by Rudyard Kipling talks about if you can walk with kings and not lose the common touch and I think that represents Jake as a person [Music] now go and adventure the hell out of life because Nancy sir [Music] to get food thanks for everything mom I love you [Music] were you can explain it to me you find [Applause] [Music] now take [Music] you

Channel: masoncadepacker

Views: 41,857

Keywords: the, common, touch, jake, bailey, story, documentary, full, movie, online, youtube, now, new zealand, christchurch, boys, high, speech, viral, mason, cade, packer, isabella, walsh, james, murray

Id: aSDsMemY-D4

Length: 39min 33sec (2373 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 27 2017