Warriors and Survivors-22

 

Children Cancer Stories by Rukh Yusuf - Blog # 22

I am Rukh Yusuf, Clinical Pharmacist, also specialized in Total Parenteral Nutrition and Bone Marrow Transplant. I have been working in Pediatric Oncology unit of a public hospital for several years. 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.

“Hope is the last thing ever lost”  Italian Proverb

After a number of struggling and failure stories, let’s talk about some hope and success.

Noor as an active 12-year-old school student, A loved ambitious, competing in extra curricular activities and love playing with her friends. But this all changed when she learned that her fever, fatigue and flu-like symptoms with rashes were the effects of leukemia (ALL) an aggressive disease that rendered her bone marrow 87 percent cancerous.      

Noor spent the next few months at Tertiary care pediatric hospital for her treatment, fighting the cancer with a daily regimen of chemotherapy and blood and platelet transfusions.

She remembers the day she was diagnosed, and her parents' reaction, “We were all crying and that was actually the worst day of all.”

But Noor isn't one to cry for long. She's a fighter, determined to live her life to the fullest. “Fight on,” she says. “Cancer is not the end of the world and it shouldn’t be stopping you from anything”. Which is exactly what she did.

She and her parents struggled hard to complete her treatment and faced every challenge from travelling to leaving alone her younger siblings at home. Travelling to and stay in hospital was not an easy task. Chemotherapy itself was enough to bear side effects but not only little survivor was determined but also her family was keen too.

Even when she was being treated at hospital and was too sick to go to school class, her parents , sibling and teachers helped her to study at home. She leaned on her parents, her siblings and friends for support. “I don’t know how to thank them,” she says. And she praises the “amazing” doctors, nurses and staff at hospital who were with her at every step of this long and tedious journey.

Now, three years later, Noor’s disease has gone and she is determined to set an example. She looks forward to helping other patients, finding ways to brighten their day and distract them from their worries.

“Let your hopes, not your hurts, shape your future.”

She says “Before I had cancer I wanted to be teacher, but after going through all of this, I have changed. I realized that I want to treat other kids with cancer and become a pediatric oncologist.”

A brave heart who loves others. She has won many competitions in school and she has a long list of goals, including setting up a hospital.

When she visits the children in the same pediatric ward she once resided in, she tells the young patients to never give up, sharing her own experience as encouragement.

Noor is symbol of hope and success for rest of sick children and their parents, May Allah bless her long healthy life. We pray that every child must have courage like Noor and every cancer warrior have successful treatment. Aameen