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“What does ‘biopsy’ mean, Mommy? In addition, why my stomach is bloated and hurting me so much?”, Hala- aged 8 years and comes from Idleb city- is too young to be aware of the fact she has a cancerous tumor in her belly and that she will go through a journey of pain with the chemo treatment which her fragile body can not bear.
Her mother narrated to us what had happened with her daughter as her tears were streaming on her cheeks, she said:” My daughter was suffering from an ache in her stomach most of the time, but I did not pay an attention to this in the beginning where I used to give her some medicine such as antibiotics and gastric medication. However, her belly started to get bloated more and more remarkably while she was getting thin day after day. So that I took her to a children doctor in the city who told me after checking on her that she had been suffering from a severe intestine inflammation, adding she had had to follow a regime as well as take some medicine.
She proceeded her story as the image of her daughter crying and begging her mother because she did not to have the radiograph which the doctor asked for in order to leave no doubts after the girl’s belly was getting bloated in unreasonable way where the pain was unbearable with no medication or tranquillizer to ease.
The radiograph revealed a big tumor in her stomach, here the doctor advised the mother to take her daughter to the capital Damascus because treatment there is better due to the weak medical potentials in Idlib city and its countryside where Idlib province suffers from shortage of medication and medical supplies to treat the patients with tumor and cancer. She headed Damascus accompanied with her daughter “Hala” who was getting thin and weak every day as cancer was taking away her childhood years.
Despite the prayers of Hala’s mother to Allah for the results of biopsy to be negative, she was shocked with the news when the doctor informed her the tumor was cancerous and she needs for an operation to ablate the tumor to have chemo doses later. She described to us the shock she had then:” the first thing came to my mind was how her fragile body can bear all that pain and ache, I wished I had died thousands times and be infected with caner in return it left her body which becomes unable to tolerate any more pains, what can I tell her hair starts to fall becoming unable to look at herself in the mirror, and thousands others questions…”.
Hala is not the only one who is suffering from cancer; according to a medical statistics, the rate of cancer has doubled in the last few years where most of them are children in the circumstances of medical and treatment retreat regarding dangerous diseases particularly in opposition held areas after regime warplanes repeatedly targeted hospitals. Turkey become the destination for many patients with cancer for there is a specialized hospital in Antakya offering treatment for free for Syrians, after heading the hospitals in regime- held areas becomes a burden needs time on a roads and checkpoints.
Miseries and pains are endless, childhood is destined to deprivation and misery amid war taking away every joy of life.
By Samah Alkhaled
Translated by Sabah Najem
Syrian Press Center
