After his diagnosis in December 2019, Matt Murney was undergoing extensive treatment. Bronte remembers him often being in pain, and her own feeling of helplessness as she saw him suffering and was unable to help. Her parents tried everything, even travelling to Thailand for two months to undergo additional treatment. Bronte and her younger brothers, Liam and Hamish – then 10 and 12 – stayed at home on their farm in the Timaru district with their grandparents.
A year later, at 15, Bronte was leading a full life typical of an active kiwi teenager. She’d just started NCEA and busy with her rowing. Her dad was still in treatment, and things seemed to be under control. Then in January, while Bronte was at a rowing camp, her dad underwent surgery to place a colostomy bag. This was to make life easier for him. But on returning from camp, Bronte was taken straight to the hospital – something had gone seriously wrong.
Matt’s kidney had failed. His other kidney had been removed prior to Bronte’s birth as a result of kidney cancer. Doctors explained that the ibuprofen he’d been taking for pain prior to surgery had led to the failure of his remaining kidney. He was unable to receive dialysis, and couldn’t be placed on the donor list because of his cancer diagnosis.
Bronte’s dad spent his last days at home. ‘They told us it would be three days, and three days was exactly right. On the first day he was lucid, on the second day he was less himself, less talkative. On the third day he was in and out.’ He died on the 27th of January, 2021.
Several weeks after his death, NZ went into COVID-19 lockdown. Bronte was home with her family – everyone grieving and in pain, not knowing how to come to terms with what had happened. ‘It was a household of big feelings… no one knew how to talk to anyone else, there were no distractions from the outside world.’
When lockdown lifted, Bronte returned to school. She’d been isolating at home since her father’s death, and the shock of being suddenly surrounded by her peers felt unmanageable. She had a panic attack.
Bronte suffered a second panic attack a few months later when her mum went away on a trip. Although her mum was away for just a few days this time, it triggered the emotions around her parents’ previous two-month trip to Asia for treatment.
Bronte’s experience with Kenzie’s Gift
In 2023, Bronte started studying towards her bachelor’s degree in commerce at Lincoln University. New to university and away from home for the first time, Bronte felt she was struggling to connect with people, and that she was isolating herself. Her mum sent information about getting support through Kenzie’s Gift, and although she had reservations, Bronte agreed to give it a try. She began sessions with Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist Jo Doyle.
Bronte describes herself as initially being very skeptical about therapy, pointing out that like many people, she didn’t have a clear sense of how it works or what’s involved. ‘What I discovered is that the therapist is not only highly trained, they’re neutral – you don’t need to worry about burdening your friends and family with all your worries, and there’s no judgement. Especially in New Zealand, there’s an attitude of ‘she’ll be right’. But sometimes it’s not alright, and you have to look after your emotional self. I wouldn’t have talked about it to anyone – what I was feeling and what I was going through. I had just internalised it so much, always pushing it down, and it was coming out in weird ways I couldn’t control.’ Bronte feels she’s doing much better now. She’s also considering continuing with therapy, as she’s seen the benefits it can have when you’re living with grief.
