Hassan, Maldives
My son started having a fever after his second birthday. The antibiotics from the hospital on our island didn’t work. We went to Malé, even then we couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Then we went abroad. After a CT scan, the Sri Lankan hospital diagnosed that he had a tumor and that it would need to be removed. If it can’t be removed, they would do a biopsy.
In February 2018, he was diagnosed with cancer. It’s called Neuroblastoma, a cancerous tumor. I felt so many things when I was told about the diagnosis, whether it was because of something we missed, and what I should do. I’ve always been concerned about anesthesia from day one. Anesthesia had to be given for biopsy, surgery and to insert the port catheter as well.
We’re talking about a small child of two years. He had a lot of fever and he lost a lot of weight. The doctor started treatment the next day without any delays. The first chemo was given, I was really sad when his hair started falling out. His hair was very long at that time. I made sure the treatment continued without any disruptions. He had to undergo surgery after five treatments.
His situation got better, however, in 2018, his cancer relapsed. When he woke up one day we knew something was wrong from the way he was walking. We met the doctor and did an MRI. It showed that the tumor had come back. That’s when I felt that I was giving into despair because we went to Sri Lanka for one week. We already had spent so much time and went to Chennai. Even football has a win-lose chance. Even during surgery we prayed and hoped. The doctors would work their best. I trusted the doctors and God. These were very hard days for us. I shared this with the Cancer Support Group. I got a lot of support from them. We removed the port catheter. The surgery was successful without complications. We’re currently doing follow-ups. Grateful that the surgery was successful. We were hoping to remove at least 15-30% of it, but we were grateful that we removed almost 100% of it. You will not feel okay during this..people will ask you if you’re okay and I say that it’s okay.. but in reality things will not be okay.
It would be comforting if people stopped asking such questions. Cancer.. It's not like a finger cut that can be sorted with a band-aid. There are so many cancers with different treatments for patients. More people need to be aware and learn about early detection, and symptoms as well. This will help make the recovery process faster. Support is very important even in a community, at a school or anywhere. The most important thing is the patients, caregivers and everyone around you stay positive and take this head-on. During my son’s whole treatment there was not a second where I thought it was not going to be successful. Even when he stopped breathing for 45 minutes, I never stopped hoping. When you face it head-on you will be successful. My brave son has now completed chemotherapy, cancer treatment and maintenance treatment. Alhamdulillah, he is now Cancer-free.