Warriors and Survivors - 80

Children Cancer Stories by Rukh Yusuf - Blog # 80

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. 

Tashiqa is only ten years old and likes to talk too much and play around. She is very expressive and loves to make friends, and little cute Tashiqa is also my friend. She has explained history of her disease herself. 

She was fine few months ago when suddenly a mass appeared on her neck, and it was painful. Her parents took her to hospital where after clinical checkup, MRI was advised to her. After MRI she had to go through Biopsy. The biopsy and MRI reports led to further investigations and after series of diagnostics test, she was confirmed as case of Euro Ewing Sarcoma. 

Advised by Neurophysician, her brain surgery was done in Lahore general hospital. She felt better after long time. Her pain relieved after surgery and Tashiqa and her family were happy thinking it was over. Later she was referred to Children’s hospital for further cancer treatment. 

Frightened and worried, the parents took their child to Children’s hospital. Again, she was admitted there and before initiating treatment, doctors counselled the family and child about treatment, its challenges, expected duration and chances of treatment success. It is necessary to brief the families in the start so that they become mentally ready to face the challenges ahead. Most of the families fight till last for their beloved children but many lose heart due to cumbersome treatment and other problems associated with cancer treatment.

Tashiqa has two sisters and one brother, and her father works as sales manager in some company. Both parents are struggling for their daughter’s treatment. Though they are from the same city, and they do not have to travel long for Tashiqa’s treatment, but it is very long duration. Tashiqa has completed her six chemotherapy courses and has undergone ten radiation sessions, and this is a lot for a ten-year-old female child.  She was admitted in hospital in February 2022 and its already ten months of treatment and there is still a long way to go.

Tashiqa is a brave, lively child, she is getting better Alhamdulillah with each passing day and doctors are positive if she completes her chemotherapy, she will recover soon Insha Allah. 

Prayers that Tashiqa recovers as soon as possible. May Allah grant her complete recovery and may her disease never come back. Aameen

 

Prayers for the ease of tashiqa and her family. May Allah recover all patients. May Allah ease and cure all patients and cancer warriors.

Note: Names have been changed to protect identity

Warriors and Survivors - 79

Children Cancer Stories by Rukh Yusuf - Blog # 79

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.

 

 

If we look around, we can easily find so much pain and agony, sometimes it is hard to believe what people are going through. Little individual effort by everyone can reduce the suffering around us.

 Ananbia is only one and half year-old innocent child who has not learnt how to speak yet. She got admitted in February 2022 and now she is one year and 10 months old.

Anabia was diagnosed of Embryonal Rhabdomyosarcoma in February 2022. She is under treatment, and she still can’t express her pain and treatment related difficulties. Her disease started with vaginal mass in one and half year age, Anabia had no pain, so parents did not know about the cancer of her daughter.  They came to know her disease when the mass came out. They consulted physician and doctors admitted her for diagnostic tests and she was diagnosed as a case of a very difficult cancer.

Anabia has one brother and one sister, and her father was working in private company which he was forced to quit as he had to stay with his daughter in hospital for chemotherapy and treatment. His little doll Anabia wants to be with her father, so father left the job to be with his little doll.

Since Anabia is under treatment, her other siblings are with grandparents. It is difficult time for the family but there is no other way out.  Anabia is too weak but still fighting with cancer. She has received four chemotherapy cycles and radiations as well. Her treatment is continued, and she has started speaking few words but cannot express her grief and pain in words.

Her parents only want healthy life of their daughter, they laugh when Anabia is happy, they cry when she cries. Anabia’s father is educated, and he has couple of job offers as well but can’t work until his daughter gets stabilized and recovers.

 

This white-collar family is working hard for the life of younger daughter. They do not complain, nor do they ask any help from anyone. The family is struggling with the financial issues as well but still you will not see both parents complaining. You will see them contented as they have hopes from Allah that their daughter will be healthy and normal again.

Prayers that Anabia recovers as soon as possible. If Allah wills and Anabia recovers, they will forget all the agony.

 

Prayers for the ease of Anabia and her family. May Allah recover all patients. May Allah ease and cure all patients and cancer warriors.

Note: Names have been changed to protect identity

Warriors and Survivors - 78

Children Cancer Stories by Rukh Yusuf - Blog # 78

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.

 

I did not want to write this story out of grief but still I am writing it to show our young warrior’s bravery and strength, and to keep him in remembrance.

This story is about Shahzad; I still feel upset while writing about him and recalling his memories, but he was too brave and must be recalled and remembered.

Shahzad belonged to a small village near Pattoki, He was only 12 years old when he was first admitted in Children’s hospital. His father was usually sick, and his uncle used to take care of him who he had his small shop in the village. Shahzad’s mother used to bring Shahzad for his treatment to Lahore. Shahzad was mature enough to understand the importance of chemotherapy, so he was going through it without complaining. Shahzad bore every difficulty associated with long troublesome treatment valiantly.

After two and half year’s treatment, Alhamdulillah, he was fine. His results were good, and he was allowed to go home, and he only needed periodic follow ups. Shahzad and his family were very happy, he had lots of plan and dreams for his future healthy life. The life he had forgotten about was looking bright ahead.

Shahzad continued his studies in his town, he was a brilliant student and loved by all his family and teachers. He was doing great in his studies. He did his matriculation and then Intermediate. It was happy time for him when he was about to go for admission for his graduate studies.

He used to do photography with his phone camera, and he had an Instagram page too for his photography skills and many of his pictures were amazing. He also used to play football and once when he came to hospital for follow up, he met us and told us that sometimes it was difficult for him to play as he was short of breath and got tired easily. He said that his heart rate went up high up while playing. I was afraid those were not a good sign.

Doctors sent his all tests necessary for follow up. In just two days his relapse was conformed. It was the saddest news he could ever had. Even more annoying than first time he had this diagnosis.

He came by himself for follow up. He was running all by himself for his tests and meeting doctors. Shahzad was worried about his treatment and treatment success. He asked almost every doctor involved that if he was going to be cured.

I am heartbroken while writing it, A young lad who had to see the world, who still had to work on his dreams and worked hard for the future of his family was worried about his life and all alone.

He met me two weeks ago, he composed himself Infront of me, he only asked me once that “Will I be cured now”?

As he was 17 now, so his treatment was not allowed in Children’s hospital and he had to run for other options as well, but he could not get admission in any of the hospitals due to his disease state and due to lack of facilities in other public hospitals.

His mother had also come, she was depressed and had decided to sell their house and go to Rawalpindi for his treatment, but Shahzad had decided to overcome this crisis. Only after a week we heard the news of his death and we were speechless, we were not able to see each other.

No one knew that 17 years old apparently healthy kid would die silently like this. May be if would he gotten treatment from some place, he could live more. Maybe he could not bear refusal of his treatment.

Here is link of documentary about him produced by some of his friend. Need a strong heart to see 

https://youtu.be/hVd3fjG15XA

He was a bright child, always prominent in hospital events, we can’t forget him. His Instagram page is silent now. I am still crying for him and many other children like him. I wish to meet all of them someday and see how they are living in peace with Allah without any pain and suffering. I wish to see them pain free.

We need more cancer centers not only for children but also for adults with world class treatment facilities. So that no other Shahzad could ever die because of refusal of treatment or lack of facilities.

Prayers for the ease of Shahzad and his family. May Allah ease and cure all patients and cancer warriors.

Note: Names have been changed to protect identity

Warriors & Survivors Blog Post- 77

Children Cancer Stories- 77

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.

Today’s episode is in continuation to the last week blog post about Sataish and her suicide intention. Her thought and intention made a deep impact on me, and I was not contented enough after writing one blog about her so here is another episode about Sataish and we will try to explore reasons behind her suicidal thoughts.

Cancer related mortality is higher in lower and middle-income countries than in developed ones, there are lot of factors involved in the higher mortality rate. Most of LMICs are already stressed with weak healthcare system and economic infrastructure and, therefore, have unique challenges. Although the WHO acknowledges that the effective management of cancer relies on early detection, accurate diagnosis, and access to appropriate multimodal therapy. However, the priority of early detection cannot be assumed to be effective in LMICs, where limited downstream resources may be overwhelmed by the inevitable increases in number of diagnoses.

We are having same issues, a smaller number of oncology centers and overwhelming increase in new cases are limiting factors in the quality of care for pediatric and even adult cancer patients. This results in lots of personal and social issues for every cancer patient. Not only patient’s quality of life decreases but also whole family is affected by the disease.

There is shortage of specialized cancer centers in the country, not only pediatric but also for adults. The centers which we have are not able to handle the ever-increasing number of patients.

There is also lack of oncology trained healthcare providers, Pediatric oncology is super specialty and requires more dedicated multidisciplinary health professionals. This lacking is causing serious damage to overall treatment success and poor quality of life of patient and their families.

Poor socio-economic status of the affected patient also is another reason for suboptimal treatment outcome and poor quality of life of patients, though treatment is free in most centers, still patients need frequent hospital visits with families and most of the time they have to travel from other cities that requires finances.

Provisions of healthy diet is another contributing factor, though some centers provide quality food and children hospital is one of them but not all centers have this facility.

Last but not the least, long treatment duration and associated side effects with cancer treatment are major causes of stress and agitation among patients and their families. There are other social issues associated with being a patient and fears associated with the chronic disease. Fear of death and fear of late or no recovery is major cause of suicidal tendencies in cancer patients.

Now imagine the stresses on an eight years old Sataish and one can well understand the pressure on her and reason of her negative thoughts.

Let’s try to do something positive for the betterment of these patients in any capacity, Let’s try that no child thinks of dying in such an age of blooming and growing. Let’s take every possible step to make our society better for our new generation.

We pray for the ease of Sataish’s mother and her family. We pray for the health and happiness and dreams of Sataish and her safe and successful future life and ease of her family. Nothing is impossible for our Lord.

Prayers for the complete health and recovery of all other warriors who are suffering with their families. May Allah ease and cure all patients and cancer warriors.

Note: Names have been changed to protect identity