golfer<\/a> is juggling life on tour while his three\u2011year\u2011old daughter, Dakota, undergoes treatment for leukaemia.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s just a massive juggling act at the moment. We\u2019re just trying to do the best we can,\u201d Rankin said, per the PGA Tour of Australia.<\/p>\n
Rankin has always been able to separate golf from his personal life, but this battle is different.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s before rounds and after rounds that are the hard part\u2026 when your daughter\u2019s saying, \u2018I miss you. Can you come home?\u2019, that gets pretty hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
The family\u2019s ordeal began earlier this year when Dakota became constantly fatigued, asking to be carried and coming home from daycare \u201cabsolutely wiped\u201d.<\/p>\n
While Rankin was away playing The National Tournament in March, his partner Nicole sought a second opinion after bouts of pneumonia and chest infections.<\/p>\n
Then came the message that changed everything: \u201cHey, just a heads up. We\u2019re going to the hospital. The doctor thinks it might be something.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rankin rushed home. That night, doctors confirmed Dakota had B\u2011cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (B\u2011ALL), the most common strain of childhood leukaemia.<\/p>\n
The family is only a few months into an almost three\u2011year treatment plan that will strip Dakota\u2019s immune system and test their resilience.<\/p>\n
The first month was brutal, with daily steroids and chemotherapy triggering mood swings and exhaustion.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe wouldn\u2019t smile for a week. She\u2019d just be stuck in bed and pretty miserable,\u201d Rankin said.<\/p>\n
But there has been a rare positive: Dakota responded so well to the initial phase that she has now been placed in the low\u2011risk category. Her treatment will continue, but at a lower intensity.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy the end of the year, November, December, she should be easing into that maintenance period, which basically becomes normal life,\u201d Rankin said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brett Rankin boarded a flight out of Brisbane last Sunday to compete in the Asian Tour event in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":896283,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-896282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=896282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/896283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=896282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=896282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=896282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/p>\n