Warriors and Survivors - 279

Warriors and Survivors - Children Cancer Stories by Rukh Yusuf - Blog # 279

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. 

Ansa Is Five

She does not know what leukemia is.

For her, it is simply the reason her days have changed.

A few months ago, her world was much easier to understand. At five, childhood is usually made up of small and familiar things like playing, toys, going outside, asking questions, getting tired, falling asleep, and starting all over again the next day.

Now, there are medicines.

There are tablets and syrups. There are injections and IV drips. There are tests that she has to go through, even when she does not understand why they are necessary. There are appointments and hospital visits that have become part of a routine she never asked for.

She may not understand the word leukemia, but she understands that something is different.

Children do not always understand illness in the way adults do. A five-year-old does not think about diagnoses, treatment protocols, or what the next few months might bring. She knows what is happening to her today.

She knows when someone brings medicine.

She knows when it is time for another injection.

She knows when she has to sit still for a test.

And she knows that sometimes the adults around her are worried.

For a child, these things can be confusing. Why are there so many medicines? Why does she have to take them when she would rather play? Why does another person need to examine her? Why can't she simply go home and return to the things that make sense to her?

She doesn't know that every medicine is being given with the hope of making her better.

She only knows that medicine has become a much bigger part of her life.

That is one of the difficult things about childhood cancer. The child is asked to live through something that they are often too young to understand, while the adults around them are trying to understand everything at once.

For Ansa's parents, the experience is very different.

They understand what leukemia means. They understand why the medicines are necessary. They understand that treatment can take time and that there are many uncertainties along the way.

But knowing does not make it easier.

There is a particular kind of uncertainty that comes with having a sick child. It follows parents through hospital visits, through treatment, and into the quiet moments at home. There are questions they cannot always answer for themselves, let alone for their child.

How will the treatment go?

How will she respond?

What will the next test show?

When will life begin to feel normal again?

Parents often have to carry these questions while continuing to do the ordinary things that their child still needs from them. They have to remember medicines, attend appointments, make decisions, and comfort their child. And, at the same time, they have to try to give their child a sense of normal childhood.

For Ansa, that childhood is still there, but it has been interrupted.

The playground has been replaced, at least for now, by hospital rooms and treatment schedules. Toys and games still belong to her world, but so do tablets, syrups, injections, and IV lines.

She is still five.

She still has a child's understanding of the world.

And perhaps that is what makes her story so difficult to describe. She does not see herself as a leukemia patient. She is simply Ansa a five-year-old girl going through something she does not fully understand, while the people who love her try to make each day a little easier.

Her parents cannot promise her exactly what the future will look like.

What they can do is stay beside her through the uncertainty.

They can give the medicines, bring her to the appointments, hold her hand through the difficult moments, and keep hoping for the day when treatment is no longer the center of her life.

For now, Ansa's story is still being written.

And somewhere beneath the hospital visits and treatment schedules is a five-year-old child who deserves what every child deserves: the chance to grow, to play, to laugh, and to discover the world beyond hospitals.

Her parents are hoping for that too.

Not for anything extraordinary.

Just for more ordinary days with their daughter.

For children like Ansa, that ordinary life is a beautiful milestone in itself.

May she stay healthy and live a beautiful healthy life. Aameen

Note: Patient name has been changed to protect privacy.