A story of a cancer survivor
Yangchen
Lhamo Drungtso, XI B Science
In
the United States in 2017, an estimated 10, 270 new cases of cancer wil be
diagnosed among children from birth to 14 years and about 1, 190 children are
expected to die from the disease. According to World Health Orgnaisation (WHO),
deadly disease ‘Cancer’ was defined as a generic term for a large group of
diseases characterized by the growth of abnormal cells beyond their usual
boundaries that then invade adjoining parts of the body and spread to other
organs . So, I don’t think that it is an alarming piece of news that whole
world needs to know so that we can address the issue soon.
Have
you ever thought in the same manner and talked about these issues with your
peers? Or have you ever dreamt of
becoming a life saver? For some, the answers may pop out to be a big fat “NO”.
But, for me, as an eleventh grader from TCV School Selakui, I have dreamt of
becoming a pediatric oncologist who could help children escape children from
the inevitability of death due to cancer.
One
fine morning, as I searched around my table to find my important research
paper, my eyes caught a s statement by the well known Indian oncologist
Siddhartha Mukerjee who talked in one of his interview in which she said, “Anyone
who has spent time the oncology clinic understands that it can be if you look
at it in a certain way a very depressing place. Perhaps the most striking sign
of that is when young residents and fellows say, “I don’t want to become an
oncologist because everyone dies. “It is absolutely not true”. And my eyes
drawn towards that e last sentence which brings a ray of hope that can
illuminate the lives of many cancer patients. Every year, 300, 000 families
around the world will hear, “Your child has cancer”. And I can’t just sit,
watching these heart wrecking news and ending up as a mere oncologist. It
carries a huge responsibility for a future oncologist like me to take the road
less travelled and to explore for an effective treatment.
Beside accidents, cancer stands for
the second leading cause of death in children youndger than 15 years of old. Children
having cancer treatment have to overcome unbearable treatments like radiation and chemotherapy that make life
unbearable to live. And parker is one of the children with cancer. This life threatening
moment happened at the age of six and half years. On the morning of March, 2013
he got an injury to his left hip but never knew that this small injury would
bring a huge loss and burden to his family. Over the following weeks the pain
grew intensely, his ability to walk became impaired, he developed diarrhea and
his eyes began to bulge out. Not only that, he woke up in the middle of the
night with low grade fever and his legs started hurting. So, he was sent back
home from his boarding school. They consulted many pediatricians and Parker
finally had an X-ray. After hours of observation and analysis, the pediatrician
came up with his X-ray explaining them that, his hip was normal but there were
some infections in his body. To get a CT scan for confirmation was going to
take a lot of the time to schedule.
On
the tenth day of April, 2013, before their morning alarm rang, they were
awakened by the shrill cry of Parker. They rushed him to the ER Labs at Rady
Children’s Hospital in SanDiego. Since, the labs were closed, there were no
patients in sight. Parker’s mother told the doctors about his symptoms and
handed the lab results. While waiting for the doctor, his mother craked jokes
and acted as if she wasn’t scared at all. Then the doctors came with her eyes
scarlet, swollen as if she had wept. She explained that there was a hught lump
on Parker’s left kidney but they were unable to know what the lump was. So, They
met with an oncologist and he explain to them that Parker had stage four
neuroblastoma. Among the top fiev pediatric cancers, neuroblastoma is a solid
tumor that arises from immature nerve cells in young children. It is found
primarily in children younger than the age of 5 years old. It mostly begins in
the adrenal glands and makes up 7 percent of childhood cancers in the U.S.
The neuroblastoma in Parker started
on his left adrenal glands and metastatised to his bone and 87% of his bone
morrow. Thought the chances for his survival were only about 20%, Parker fought
it fiercely as he endured then hours of tumor surgery, eight rounds of thermotherapy,
fourteen rounds of radiation, ten cycles of a painful mouse antibody, the so
called 3F8, and finally harvested 500 millions natural killer cells from this
father. Through many sacrifices, a seven year old child has survived. During
that time, a cancer survivor named Aiden who has once suffered from state four
neuroblastoma gave parker immense hope during his dark days and helped him to
get in touch with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York.
Now
the big question arises. “How can we help these cancer patients?” Even thought
we have treatments for this, we are still facing problems with intensive treatment
that carries many unwanted side effects and even present possibility of the
recurring tomor. Thus, the young future scientist and oncologist needs to
ponder over this situation and find new solution. Finding better ideas and
innovations to cure this deadly disease is the need of the hour. Besides this
its our responsibility to lift up the spirits of these innocent children by
nurture then with hope, helping them to tolerate with the situation and to give
then a new life.
“Support
the fighters
Admire
the survivors
Honor
the taken
Never,
ever give up Hope”
Anonymous
