Warriors and Survivors - 253

Children Cancer Stories by Rukh Yusuf - Blog # 253

I am Rukh Yusuf, Clinical Pharmacist, also specialized in Total Parenteral Nutrition and Bone Marrow Transplant. I have worked in the Pediatric Oncology unit of a public hospital. The mission of this blog is to bring to you the real-life stories of child patients suffering from cancer. Cancer is still a difficult disease to handle and treat. However, when it strikes the children, some so young that they cannot even speak, their agony is beyond expression and words. Let us pray especially for children suffering from cancer for early and complete remission. May Allah shower His Merciful Blessings upon them. Aameen.

This week marks the beginning of a new chapter in our pediatric oncology stories. Over the past months, we have shared journeys from within our own center, but now we are opening this space to stories from pediatric oncology units across Pakistan and beyond. Each center carries its own experiences, its own challenges, and its own children who quietly endure the long path of treatment. Through this series, we hope to bring forward voices and journeys from different hospitals, reminding us that the struggle against childhood cancer is shared not only by children and families but also by healthcare team across many places.

Our first story in this new series comes from the Pediatric Oncology Unit at MTA Khyber Teaching Hospital, Peshawar, where children receive dedicated care under the supervision of Dr. Muhammad Kashif Afridi and his team. Among the many children treated there is Farha, whose journey over the past year reflects both the difficulties of treatment and the hope that follows.

Farha was diagnosed with Wilms tumor more than a year ago. For her family, the diagnosis came as a sudden and overwhelming moment. Like many parents, they entered the hospital seeking answers for their child’s symptoms, only to find themselves facing a reality they had never imagined. The early days after diagnosis were filled with fear, confusion, and countless questions about treatment, recovery, and the future.

Treatment began soon after diagnosis and continued for over a year. This long course required regular hospital visits, chemotherapy sessions, laboratory tests, and continuous monitoring. For Farha, hospital corridors became familiar. She learned to sit through procedures, take medications on time, and adjust to a routine that revolved around treatment schedules. Some days were easier than others. There were moments when she felt energetic and playful, and other times when fatigue and treatment side effects made even simple activities challenging.

Cancer treatment changes the rhythm of childhood. School attendance often pauses. Playtime becomes limited. Physical strength fluctuates with each treatment cycle. Children may not always express their fears, but they experience the emotional weight of repeated hospital visits and medical procedures. Yet many children adapt in quiet ways. They find comfort in small routines, familiar faces in the hospital, and the steady presence of their caregivers.

Families face their own parallel challenges during this period. Parents often spend long hours at the hospital while trying to maintain stability at home. Financial concerns can slowly build over months of treatment. Emotional exhaustion becomes part of daily life as each scan and laboratory report brings renewed anxiety. Siblings also feel the shift in family attention and routine. Despite these pressures, families continue forward with determination, guided by hope and by the strength they see in their child.

Farha’s journey followed this demanding path. Under the care of Dr. Muhammad Kashif Afridi and his team, she remained on treatment for more than a year. Each phase required patience and resilience from both Farha and her family. Over time, small milestones began to appear completion of treatment cycles, encouraging test results, and gradual improvement in her health.

Today, Farha has reached a hopeful and reassuring stage. She has completed her treatment and is now doing well. She has been declared cured and remains under regular follow-up to monitor her continued health. Follow-up visits now serve as reminders of recovery rather than sources of fear. Each visit marks another step away from illness and toward a normal childhood.

Recovery after cancer treatment is not only physical but emotional. Families slowly return to routines that once felt distant. Children regain strength, confidence, and the ability to engage again in school and play. For Farha and her family, this phase brings relief and gratitude after a long and challenging year.

As we begin sharing stories from pediatric oncology centers across Pakistan, Farha’s journey reminds us of the many children who walk this difficult path and emerge stronger. It also highlights the ongoing challenges families face throughout treatment and the importance of consistent care and support. This new series will continue to bring forward such journeys from different centers and cities, each story not only bring the struggle of suffering child and family but also highlights the efforts of treating physician and healthcare team.

Prayers for Farha and all the sick children and their families who have to face this pain of cancer. May Allah make it easy for them. Aameen

Note: “The child’s name has been changed to protect privacy, and the accompanying image is AI-generated.”

Warriors and Survivors - 252

Children Cancer Stories by Rukh Yusuf - Blog # 252

I am Rukh Yusuf, Clinical Pharmacist, also specialized in Total Parenteral Nutrition and Bone Marrow Transplant. I have worked in the Pediatric Oncology unit of a public hospital. The mission of this blog is to bring to you the real-life stories of child patients suffering from cancer. Cancer is still a difficult disease to handle and treat. However, when it strikes the children, some so young that they cannot even speak, their agony is beyond expression and words. Let us pray especially for children suffering from cancer for early and complete remission. May Allah shower His Merciful Blessings upon them. Aameen. 

Zahra is eight years old and has always preferred quiet games. She likes arranging her pencils in straight lines, braiding her doll’s hair, and sitting beside her mother while homework is being done at the dining table. Until a few months ago, her days followed a predictable schedule: school, home, dinner, and bedtime stories. Now her days are measured differently by hospital visits, blood counts, and the slow ticking of clocks in waiting rooms.

Her diagnosis came without warning. A few weeks of fatigue, a fever that didn’t settle, and bruises that appeared without explanation. At first, her parents thought it was just a lingering infection or perhaps the strain of school. The word leukemia entered their lives during a hospital appointment that was meant to reassure them. Instead, it rearranged everything.

They live far from extended family. The nearest relatives are hours away, and most of their friends remain in their hometown. For treatment, Zahra and her parents had to move temporarily to a city with a pediatric oncology center. They now live in a small rented apartment close to the hospital, a place that feels neither like home nor a place of rest. Suitcases remain half-packed in the corner, as if they are always preparing for the next sudden admission.

Travel has become routine. Early morning drives for appointments. Late-night returns after unexpected fevers. Sometimes, they travel back home briefly to collect clothes or check on things left behind, only to return again for treatment cycles. The road between the two cities has become familiar but never comforting.

Zahra does not fully understand what leukemia means. She knows it has something to do with her blood and that she needs medicines that make her feel tired and sometimes more sick. She notices the change in her parents’ faces more than anything else. They speak softly now, often in hushed tones outside hospital rooms or over phone calls they think she cannot hear. Visitors speak gently when they come. Nurses smile more than usual. Even strangers seem to look at her with a kind of careful attention that she never asked for.

In the hospital ward, Zahra sees many children. Some are younger, some older. Many have lost their hair. Some sit quietly with tablets or coloring books. Others lie in beds attached to IV lines, their parents beside them. She does not ask many questions, but she watches. The chemo bay, with its rows of chairs and infusion pumps, has become a place she recognizes too well. She has begun to understand that many of the children there are fighting something similar, even if she doesn’t know the details.

Sometimes she wonders why there are so many of them.

Her younger brother stays with relatives most of the time now. When he visits, he seems unsure how to behave. He misses his sister but feels out of place in hospital corridors and small apartments. Video calls have replaced shared meals and bedtime arguments. The family feels divided across locations, connected by schedules and updates rather than daily life.

For Zahra’s parents, uncertainty is constant. Each test result brings a mix of relief and new worry. They try to remain composed during consultations, taking notes, asking questions, and nodding as doctors explain treatment phases and side effects. Later, in private, they revisit every word, trying to understand what lies ahead. Sleep comes in short intervals. The fear of losing their child sits quietly in the background, never fully spoken but always present.

Zahra senses some of this without understanding it completely. She knows something serious is happening because everyone around her behaves as if it is. She misses school and her friends but does not always say so. Instead, she asks simple questions: when she can go home, when she can sleep in her own bed again, when the medicines will stop.

On some evenings, after returning from the hospital, she sits by the window of their temporary apartment and watches the street below. Cars pass, people walk, life continues. Inside, her parents prepare meals, sort medications, and plan the next day’s hospital visit. The routine is heavy but necessary.

Life has become uncertain, but it has not stopped. It moves forward in careful steps, through hospital corridors, along highways between cities, and inside the quiet spaces of a family learning to live with a diagnosis they never expected.

Prayers for Zahra and all the sick children and their families who have to face this pain of cancer. May Allah make it easy for them. Aameen

Note: “The child’s name has been changed to protect privacy, and the accompanying image is AI-generated.”

Warriors and Survivors - 251

Children's Cancer Stories by Rukh Yusuf—Blog #251

I am Rukh Yusuf, Clinical Pharmacist, also specialized in Total Parenteral Nutrition and Bone Marrow Transplant. I have worked in the Pediatric Oncology unit of a public hospital. The mission of this blog is to bring to you the real-life stories of child patients suffering from cancer. Cancer is still a difficult disease to handle and treat. However, when it strikes the children, some so young that they cannot even speak, their agony is beyond expression and words. Let us pray especially for children suffering from cancer for early and complete remission. May Allah shower His Merciful Blessings upon them. Aameen. 

Khurram is eight now. Three months ago, his life was all about simple school routine, cricket with his friends outside his home, and evenings spent sharing stories with his parents and siblings. Today, life has changed altogether. Now, life is all about hospital corridors, blood tests, lab reports, and medical jargons that no child should have to learn so early i.e., leukemia, chemotherapy, counts, and recovery.

He belongs to a middle-class family of Gujrat which is a small city in Punjab. The family that had always measured life in practical, small hopeful steps. Khurram is their only son, the center of their life and quiet dreams for the future. 

While witnessing journeys of these children and families, sometimes, a quiet question arises in my mind: what is more difficult for parents, to have an only child facing such a cruel disease, where every hope and every fear rests on one fragile life? Or to have more than one child, and watching the illness of one ripple through the emotional world of all of them, gently reshaping childhood for each of them? 

There is no simple answer, because mostly pain and pain related feelings cannot be described in words.

For parents of an only child, the hospital room can feel overwhelmingly silent. Their entire world seems to narrow into one small bed, one treatment chart, one set of lab reports that determine everything. Every appointment carries the  fear, the weight of future. There are no siblings at home to fill the quiet spaces, no distraction from the constant awareness that all their dreams are tied to this one fragile life. Their love for the only child becomes both their strength and their weakness, tied together by hope that must remain steady even on the most uncertain days.

Yet for families with multiple children, the challenge unfolds differently but no less deeply. When one child is diagnosed with cancer, the illness does not stay confined to hospital walls. It quietly enters the lives of other children as well. They watch routines change; they sense the worry in their parents’ voices. They learn, far earlier than expected, that life can become serious without warning. Birthdays are celebrated softly, school achievements may pass silently. Attention becomes divided, not by choice, but by necessity.

Parents in such families often carry a silent burden of balance,  sitting beside one child in a hospital room while worrying about another waiting at home. They try to protect each child from fear while managing their own. They strive to keep normalcy alive in a home that has been touched by uncertainty. Love, in these homes, stretches across multiple emotional needs, often leaving parents exhausted but still determined as they do not have other choice.

Pediatric cancer, in truth, never belongs to just one child. It gently weaves itself into the emotional life of an entire family. It asks parents to remain strong even when they feel fragile. It asks siblings to understand circumstances that even adults struggle to process. It asks families to hold onto hope while learning to live with unpredictability.

Perhaps the question is not which situation is harder. Perhaps the more meaningful reflection is how we, as a community, can make either path less heavy.

In the end, what matters most is not comparing one hardship to another but responding with compassion to all of them. When communities become more aware, more present, and more willing to support, the burden begins to feel a little lighter. And for families walking through the long and uncertain road of pediatric cancer, even small gestures of understanding can make a difference.

Awareness is not only about understanding disease statistics or treatment protocols. It is about recognizing the quiet emotional realities families live through every day. It is about kindness; it’s about feeling the pain of people around. It is about offering support that is thoughtful rather than purposeful, a kind word, a shared resource, a gesture that reminds parents and children that they are not alone in this journey.

Every child deserves a future shaped by possibility rather than illness. And every effort, no matter how small, brings that future a little closer.

Prayers for Khurram and all the sick children and their families who have to face this pain of cancer. May Allah make it easy for them. Aameen

Note: “The child’s name has been changed to protect privacy, and the accompanying image is AI-generated.”

Warriors and Survivors - 250

Children Cancer Stories by Rukh Yusuf - Blog # 250

I am Rukh Yusuf, Clinical Pharmacist, also specialized in Total Parenteral Nutrition and Bone Marrow Transplant. I have worked in the Pediatric Oncology unit of a public hospital. The mission of this blog is to bring to you the real-life stories of child patients suffering from cancer. Cancer is still a difficult disease to handle and treat. However, when it strikes the children, some so young that they cannot even speak, their agony is beyond expression and words. Let us pray especially for children suffering from cancer for early and complete remission. May Allah shower His Merciful Blessings upon them. Aameen. 

The Quiet Weight of Ahmad’s Days

Ahmad is ten years old. He is at an age where life is supposed to be loud, filled with questions, movement, and small, ordinary chaos. But his days have become quiet in ways no child’s should. A few months ago, Ahmad was diagnosed with leukemia, and since then, silence has slowly settled into his life and the lives of those who love him.

The hospital became familiar before he had time to understand why. White corridors, waiting rooms, and carefully spoken conversations replaced classrooms and playgrounds. Doctors explained things gently, but Ahmad understood enough to know that something serious had taken hold of his body. He learned new routines quickly: blood tests, long hours of waiting, medicines that left him tired and sick. None of it felt dramatic. It was simply exhausting.

Leukemia did not take everything from Ahmad all at once. Instead, it arrived quietly and stayed. At first, he was just more tired than usual. Then he stopped finishing games. Eventually, he stopped asking to play at all. His body no longer responded the way it used to, and that loss was difficult to explain, even to himself.

Chemotherapy brought its own challenges. Food lost its flavor. Nausea became familiar. Pain settled into his bones and muscles. When his hair began to fall out, no one made a scene. Ahmad noticed anyway. He started wearing caps and pulling them low, not because anyone asked him to, but because it made the world feel easier to face.

School slowly slipped away from him. Missed days became missed weeks. Lessons continued without him, and friendships grew quieter. When classmates visited, they spoke carefully, unsure of what to say. Ahmad smiled for them, but after they left, the room felt larger and emptier than before.

Emotionally, the weight was constant. Ahmad rarely complained. When asked how he felt, he usually said he was fine. He seemed to understand, instinctively, that worry already filled the room. So he carried his fear quietly, believing silence was a form of strength.

For his family, the battle was equally unspoken. Their lives reorganized around hospital visits, test results, and medication schedules. Sleep came in short stretches. Conversations became cautious. There were questions they never asked out loud and fears they saved for moments when Ahmad could not hear.

Watching a child endure pain without being able to stop it changes a parent. There is a particular kind of helplessness in holding your child’s hand while knowing you cannot take the suffering away. Medical expenses added another layer of strain, but even that felt secondary to the emotional cost of watching Ahmad grow older in ways no child should have to.

Nights were the hardest. Pain does not rest when the world goes quiet. Some nights Ahmad lay awake, staring at the ceiling, waiting for discomfort to pass. One of his parents always stayed close, offering presence when answers were not possible.

And yet, life continued in small, fragile moments. A laugh during a cartoon. A short walk down the hospital hallway. A day when the pain eased just enough to breathe. These moments did not erase the struggle, but they reminded the family that hope can exist alongside fear.

Ahmad’s story is not loud. It does not ask for attention. It exists in quiet hospital rooms, in tired smiles, in the silent courage of a child and the steady love of a family doing everything they can.

This is what illness often looks like, not dramatic, not visible from the outside, but deeply human. A silent struggle carried day by day, where strength lies only in endurance.

Prayers for Ahmad and all the sick children and their families who have to face this pain of cancer. May Allah make it easy for them. Aameen

Note: “The child’s name has been changed to protect privacy, and the accompanying image is AI-generated.”

Warriors and Survivors - 249

Children Cancer Stories by Rukh Yusuf - Blog # 249

I am Rukh Yusuf, Clinical Pharmacist, also specialized in Total Parenteral Nutrition and Bone Marrow Transplant. I have worked in the Pediatric Oncology unit of a public hospital. The mission of this blog is to bring to you the real-life stories of child patients suffering from cancer. Cancer is still a difficult disease to handle and treat. However, when it strikes the children, some so young that they cannot even speak, their agony is beyond expression and words. Let us pray especially for children suffering from cancer for early and complete remission. May Allah shower His Merciful Blessings upon them. Aameen. 

This week’s story is about Waqas, a young child from Sialkot whose life has been quietly reshaped by a diagnosis most people have never heard of it: hepatoblastoma. A rare liver cancer in children, the word itself sounds distant and clinical, but for Waqas and his family, it has become part of their everyday language, their routines, and their worries.

Before the diagnosis, Waqas’s days were ordinary in the way childhood should be. Mornings began with getting ready, small complaints about food, running around the house, and being called back again and again by his mother. Like many families, they did not think much about health beyond the usual childhood fevers or stomach aches. When Waqas started to lose his appetite and complained of discomfort, it did not immediately feel alarming. Children fall sick; parents worry and then move on. But this time, the worry did not pass.

The day the diagnosis was confirmed, life seemed to split into a “before” and an “after.” For his parents, especially his mother, the shock was numbing. The word “tumor” echoed in her mind long after the doctor finished speaking. She nodded as instructions were given, reports explained, and treatment plans discussed, but inside she felt hollow. It is a particular kind of pain when the illness belongs to a child you do not know where to place your fear or how to carry it.

Waqas himself does not fully understand what hepatoblastoma means. What he understands is that his life now involves hospitals. His days are no longer measured by school hours or playtime, but by appointments, scans, blood tests, and waiting rooms. Mornings often begin earlier than they used to, with his parents gently waking him, encouraging him to eat something even when his appetite is low. Sometimes he cooperates, sometimes he turns his face away, already tired before the day has begun.

Hospital days are long. There is a lot of waiting, waiting to be called in, waiting for blood results, waiting for doctors to come back with explanations. For a child, this waiting can feel endless. Waqas sits quietly, sometimes playing with a small toy, sometimes leaning against his mother’s side. His parents try to distract him, but the anxiety never fully leaves. Needles, machines, unfamiliar faces all of it becomes part of what “normal” looks like now.

At home, life does not return to what it was. Everyday routines are adjusted around his energy levels. Some days Waqas feels slightly better and asks to play; on other days, even getting out of bed feels like too much. His family has learned to celebrate small things finishing a meal, sleeping without pain, a day without tears. These moments may seem insignificant to others, but for families like Waqas’s, they carry immense meaning.

The emotional toll is constant. His parents move through their days with a quiet heaviness. There are practical worries traveling for treatment, managing expenses, arranging care but beneath all of that is a deeper fear they rarely voice. At night, when the house is quiet, those fears become louder. Like many parents of children with cancer, they ask questions with no easy answers: Why him? How long will this last? Will he be okay?

Healthcare workers become an important part of Waqas’s life. Nurses who speak softly, doctors who explain things patiently, and support staff who try to make a frightening place feel a little safer. Even for them, caring for children like Waqas is emotionally demanding. Pediatric oncology is not just about treatment protocols; it is about witnessing families at their most vulnerable and trying, day after day, to offer both medical care and human comfort.

What is often missed when we talk about childhood cancer is how ordinary and quiet the struggle is. There are no dramatic moments most days. There is fatigue, uncertainty, and repetition. There is learning to live with unpredictability and to function even when fear is always present. Waqas’s story is not about grand bravery; it is about endurance. It is about a child adjusting to a world that suddenly feels smaller and more fragile, and a family doing their best to hold things together.

Yet, even in this difficult routine, there is a thread of hope. It appears in Waqas’s small smiles, in the way he reaches for his parents’ hands, and in the moments when he forgets, just briefly, that he is sick. Hope is not loud here; it is quiet and persistent, carried gently from one day to the next.

By sharing Waqas’s story, the aim is not only awareness of hepatoblastoma or pediatric cancer but understanding. Understanding that behind every diagnosis is a child learning to live differently, a family navigating fear and love side by side, and a daily life reshaped by illness in ways most of us never see.

Prayers for Waqas and all the sick children and their families who have to face this pain of cancer. May Allah make it easy for them. Aameen

Note: “The child’s name has been changed to protect privacy, and the accompanying image is AI-generated.”

Warriors and Survivors - 248

Children Cancer Stories by Rukh Yusuf - Blog # 248

I am Rukh Yusuf, Clinical Pharmacist, also specialized in Total Parenteral Nutrition and Bone Marrow Transplant. I have worked in the Pediatric Oncology unit of a public hospital. The mission of this blog is to bring to you the real-life stories of child patients suffering from cancer. Cancer is still a difficult disease to handle and treat. However, when it strikes the children, some so young that they cannot even speak, their agony is beyond expression and words. Let us pray especially for children suffering from cancer for early and complete remission. May Allah shower His Merciful Blessings upon them. Aameen. 

This week, I want to share the story of Ali, an eight year old boy whose life has been suddenly interrupted by illness. Ali comes from a middle class family and lives with his parents and two younger brothers. His days used to be filled with school, small arguments over toys, and the kind of laughter that echoes in every corner of a home. But everything changed the day the doctors gave his family the news: “Ali had leukemia.”

The moment they heard it, it was too heavy to carry. His mother, who had always been the heart of the home, clutched her scarf so tightly that her fingers turned white. Her eyes, wide and unblinking, filled with tears she could not hold back. “Leukemia,” the doctor said, and for her, the word had no meaning at first only a wave of shock, fear, and helplessness. Ali’s father sat silently, jaw tight, as if trying to hold back an overwhelming tide of panic. Their younger children, sensing something was wrong but not understanding what, looked on with confusion and worry.

For Ali, the word “cancer” didn’t make sense. He noticed that his parents were quiet in a way they had never been before. He noticed the tiredness in his mother’s eyes, the worry in his father’s face. He didn’t yet understand that his frequent bruises and nosebleeds were part of something much bigger. All he knew was that something had changed, and he could feel it in the way his parents looked at him, their hands trembling as they held his.

The days after the diagnosis were heavy. Hospital visits began in quick succession blood tests, bone marrow biopsies, chemotherapy consultations. Ali’s mother moved like a shadow through their home, exhausted, her eyes red from crying quietly when no one was watching. Nights were the hardest. She would sit beside Ali’s bed, brushing his hair back, whispering softly, “It’s going to be okay,” even though she wasn’t sure if it would be. Ali, sensing her worry, would squeeze her hand tightly, offering his own small reassurance in return.

Ali’s younger brothers felt the weight of the illness too, even if they could not yet understand it. They missed the carefree days when Ali’s presence meant laughter and games, not hospital visits and whispered fears. Sometimes, they would peek into his hospital room, and just watching him lie there, pale and quiet, seemed enough to make the world feel heavier.

What struck me about Ali’s family is there were only quiet moments of small courage, tiny hope. A hug after a particularly difficult day, a bedtime story read despite the exhaustion these were the threads that held them together.

The hospital staff became part of their lives, helping them navigate the frightening and unfamiliar world of pediatric cancer. Nurses would gently hold Ali’s hand during blood draws; doctors patiently explained each step of treatment. Social workers tried to ease the emotional load on a family suddenly burdened with fear, uncertainty, and financial strain. Still, despite the care, there was no denying the profound pain of watching a child suffer.

Ali’s story is about ordinary people facing an extraordinary situation. It is about a mother who cries quietly in the night, a father who wrestles with feelings of helplessness, and siblings trying to hold onto some sense of normalcy. It is about living with uncertainty every day and still trying to go through it.  

Even in the midst of hardship, hope persists in the smallest ways. Ali smiles when he sees his favorite cartoon, laughs quietly when his younger brothers climb into bed with him, and grips his mother’s hand during hospital procedures. Ali’s journey has just begun, and the road ahead is uncertain. But his story is a reminder of what childhood cancer truly looks like, the quiet struggles, the subtle victories, and the faint lights of hope that families cling to when the world feels impossibly heavy.

For every parent, sibling, or caregiver reading this, Ali’s story reflects human resilience in its quietest form. It is about showing up, even when you are afraid, even when you feel powerless, and finding strength in the small, ordinary ways we care for the ones we love.

Prayers for Ali and all the sick children and their families who have to face this pain of cancer. May Allah make it easy for them. Aameen

Note: “The child’s name has been changed to protect privacy, and the accompanying image is AI-generated.”

Warriors and Survivors - 247

Children Cancer Stories by Rukh Yusuf - Blog # 247

I am Rukh Yusuf, Clinical Pharmacist, also specialized in Total Parenteral Nutrition and Bone Marrow Transplant. I have worked in the Pediatric Oncology unit of a public hospital. The mission of this blog is to bring to you the real-life stories of child patients suffering from cancer. Cancer is still a difficult disease to handle and treat. However, when it strikes the children, some so young that they cannot even speak, their agony is beyond expression and words. Let us pray especially for children suffering from cancer for early and complete remission. May Allah shower His Merciful Blessings upon them. Aameen. 

Three Year Old Rayan and the Weight of Words No Parent Is Ready to Carry

Rayan is three years old.

At an age when his world should revolve around toy cars, bedtime stories, and the comfort of his parents’ arms, Rayan now spends his days inside the walls of a children’s hospital. The beeping of monitors has replaced the laughter of playgrounds. Needles, masks, and unfamiliar faces have become part of his routine. Just weeks ago, Rayan was diagnosed with leukemia.

For most people, the word cancer is heavy. For parents, it is devastating. For the parents of a three-year-old child, it is unbearable.

Rayan comes from a middle class family one of millions who work hard, live modestly, and stretch every rupee carefully. His parents are educated. They read. They ask questions. They try to understand. And yet, despite their education, they are drowning in a sea of medical terminology that feels impossible to navigate.

“Acute,” “malignancy,” “bone marrow,” “chemotherapy,” “remission,” “relapse.”

These are not just words. They are loaded with fear, uncertainty, and trauma. They arrive abruptly, spoken in calm clinical tones that contrast sharply with the chaos they unleash inside a parent’s heart. Education does not shield you from fear when the diagnosis concerns your child. Literacy does not soften the blow of hearing that your baby’s life now depends on test results, response curves, and survival statistics.

Rayan’s parents sit across from doctors, nodding as explanations unfold, trying desperately to absorb information while their minds scream the same question again and again: Will our child survive?

There is a unique cruelty in pediatric cancer. Children do not understand why they hurt. They do not know why they are confined to hospital rooms or why their parents cry quietly when they think no one is watching. Rayan does not know what leukemia is. He only knows that his parents are anxious, that strangers poke him with needles, and that home feels far away.

And yet, amid all this, Rayan smiles.

He smiles at nurses who call him brave. He smiles when his parents read him stories from worn-out books they brought from home. He smiles even when his body is tired because children, in their innocence, often show resilience that adults struggle to comprehend.

For his parents, however, resilience comes at a cost.

They worry constantly not only about Rayan’s health, but about finances, time off work, transportation, and the invisible bills that accumulate silently. Middle class families often fall into a painful gap, earning too much to qualify for extensive assistance, yet not enough to absorb prolonged medical expenses without strain. Every decision becomes layered with stress, guilt, and fear.

But beyond finances, the emotional burden is the heaviest.

Cancer steals certainty. It robs parents of the ability to plan, to imagine birthdays, school days, and futures without hesitation. Life becomes divided into cycles of treatment, lab results, and waiting. Endless waiting.

What makes this journey even harder is how isolating it can feel. Friends and family want to help but often don’t know how. Conversations become awkward. Words feel inadequate. Some people disappear not out of cruelty, but because they don’t know how to face such pain.

And so Rayan’s parents learn to carry this quietly. They learn a new language they never asked to speak. They learn how to be strong while feeling shattered inside. They learn how to advocate for their child in a system that can feel overwhelming even to the most prepared.

Rayan’s story is not unique but that does not make it any less important.

It reminds us that behind every diagnosis is a family struggling to understand, to cope, and to survive emotionally alongside their child. It reminds us that cancer is not just a medical condition; it is a deeply human experience that affects entire families, especially the smallest and most vulnerable among us.

Rayan is three years old. He is not a case number or a diagnosis. He is a child who deserves compassion, gentleness, and hope.

And his parents deserve support not just medically, but emotionally and socially as they walk this path they never chose.

If nothing else, let Rayan’s story remind us to be kinder, more patient, and more present. Because sometimes, the greatest help we can offer is simply to acknowledge the weight others are carrying and to stand with them in it.

Prayers for Ryan and all the sick children and their families who have to face this pain of cancer. May Allah make it easy for them. Aameen

Note: “The child’s name has been changed to protect privacy, and the accompanying image is AI-generated.”