Childhood cancer patients in Lebanon have to fight disease while under fire

BEIRUT (AP) — Carol Zeghayer held her IV as she hurried down the brightly lit corridor of the children’s cancer center in Beirut. The 9-year-old boy’s face lit up when he saw his playmates in the oncology ward.

I was diagnosed with cancer a few months ago Clashes broke out between Hezbollah and Israel Carol goes to the center in the Lebanese capital weekly for treatment in October 2023.

But what used to be a 90-minute journey now takes up to three hours on a mountainous road. heavy bombardment It is in southern Lebanon but is still not in danger from Israeli air strikes. The family is just one of many in Lebanon grappling with the challenges of both disease and war.

“He’s just a kid. When they hit me they said ‘Mom, was it that far?’ he asks,” said his mother, Sindus Hamra.

The family lives in Hasbaya province in southeastern Lebanon, where Israeli airstrikes have echoed. part of daily life. Just 15 minutes from home, in the front-line town of Khiam, Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah fighters clash amid relentless bombardments.

On the morning of their recent trip to Beirut for treatment, the family heard the roar of a rocket and its deafening impact as they were leaving their home. Israeli airstrikes also hit vehicles on the Damascus-Beirut highway through which Carol and her mother had to pass.

Although hopes have increased in recent days, the bombardment has not slowed down. Ceasefire may be agreed soon.

Hamra is more afraid that Carol will miss chemotherapy than the war.

“His situation is very complicated; his cancer may spread to his head,” Hamra said, her eyes filled with tears. She has completed one third of her daughter’s treatment, who was first diagnosed with lymph node cancer and then leukemia, and there are still months to go.

While Carol’s family remained in their home, many in Lebanon were displaced by intense Israeli bombardment that began in late September. Tens of thousands of people fled their homes in southern and eastern Lebanon, as well as Beirut’s southern suburbs; Among them were families with children battling cancer.

The Lebanon Children’s Cancer Center quickly locates each patient to ensure treatments remain uninterrupted, sometimes allowing families to be referred to hospitals closer to their new location, said Zeina El Chami, the center’s fundraising and events manager.

In the early days of tensions, the center admitted some patients for emergency care and kept them there because it was unsafe to send them home, said pediatric hematologist and oncologist Dolly Noun.

“They had nowhere to go,” he added. “We had patients who applied due to panic attacks. “It wasn’t easy.”

The war not only deepened the struggles of young patients.

“Many doctors had to move elsewhere,” Noun said. “I know doctors who work here who haven’t seen their parents for about six weeks because the roads are so dangerous.”

Lebanon has been subjected to attacks since 2019 successive crises Economic collapse, the devastating Beirut port explosion in 2020, and now a relentless war – are leaving institutions like cancer centers struggling to raise the funds needed to save lives.

“Cancer waits for no one,” Chami said. He added that the crises have affected the centre’s ability to hold fundraising events in recent years, leaving the center in dire need of donations.

The facility currently treats more than 400 patients, ranging from a few days old to 18 years old, Chami said. It treats approximately 60% of children with cancer in Lebanon.

For Carol, the war is sometimes a topic of conversation with her friends at the cancer center. His mother described hearing the explosions and how the house shook.

For others, moments spent with friends in the centre’s playroom provide a brief escape from the harsh reality outside.

Eight-year-old Mohammad Mousawi dashes around the playroom, giggling as he hides objects and books for his playmate to find. Too caught up in the game, he barely answers the questions before the nurse calls him in for his weekly chemotherapy treatment.

His family lived in the Ghobeiry neighborhood in the southern suburbs of Beirut. His mother said their house was marked for demolition when Israel issued an evacuation warning weeks ago.

“But so far they haven’t been able to do it,” said his mother, Suzan Mousavi. “They hit the buildings around him: two behind him, two in front of him.”

The family moved three times. They first moved to the mountains, but the severe cold weakened Muhammad’s already weak immune system.

They settled in Ain al-Rummaneh, now known as Dahiyeh in Beirut’s southern suburbs, not far from their home, which had come under severe bombardment. While the Israeli army expanded the radius of the bombardment, some buildings hit were less than 500 meters (yards) from their existing homes.

Suzan Mousavi said the Mousavis lived their entire lives in Dahiyeh until the war displaced them. His parents’ house was bombed. “All our memories are gone,” he said.

Mohammed has 15 weeks of treatment left and his family is praying for his treatment to be successful. But the war stole some of their dreams.

“When Muhammad got sick, we bought a house,” he said. “It wasn’t big, but it was important. “I bought him an electric scooter and set up a pool, and I told myself that we would take him there when his treatment was finished.”

He is afraid that the house he bought with every penny he saved could disappear at any moment.

For some families, such conflicts are not new. The cancer center’s 9-year-old patient, Asinat Al Lahham, is a refugee living with her family. fled from Syria.

“We fled from one war to another,” Asinat’s mother, Fatima, added.

Weeks ago, as his father Aouni was returning home from chemotherapy treatment, an airstrike took place. He turned up the car’s music, trying to drown out the deafening sound of the attack.

Asinat sat in the back seat holding her favorite toy. “I wanted to distract him, make him hear less,” he said.

Recently, Asinat was sitting in a chair connected to an IV in the medical ward, talking to her doctor. “Just two or three small pinches,” he begged, asking for a flavor his instant noodles shouldn’t have.

“I don’t feel safe… nowhere is safe… not Lebanon, not Syria, not Palestine,” Asinat said. “Sonic booms are scary, but noodles make it better,” he added with a mischievous smile.

The family has no choice but to stay in Lebanon. Returning to Syria, where they went home, would mean giving up on Asinat’s treatment.

“We can’t leave here,” his mother said. “This war, his disease… it’s like there’s no escape.”