Children Cancer Stories by Rukh Yusuf - Blog # 249
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.”
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