Before August 29, 2015, every broadcast message and tweet about someone needing money for medical help didn’t move me to action. I just never followed up with the cases circulated on social media.
Weeks before, I had received a BC about a boy with cancer. I remember it looked like a letter and it was really sad. I don’t like sad stories and I’m part of those who believe BCs can be annoying, therefore, I ignored the message.
Some days later, the same BC came from my university mates. This time, I spotted a familiar name in the body of the text. Out of curiosity, I went ahead to ask one of my BC sending friends about the story behind the message; that was when I found out that a friend (from another department from uni) was the mother of the little boy down with cancer.
I couldn’t wrap my head around the situation. I knew when the child was born and I knew how healthy his mother had been – I had seen pictures of her and her family on Facebook months before and they looked happy. I was filled with questions. How then did this happen? How could a 4 year old have cancer? Who did he offend? Why him? Why his mother? Why?
I got in touch with my friend (his mum) and she told me about the illness. It was called Nephroblastoma, a cancer type associated with children and it was already in the fourth stage.
Childrencancer.org says Nephroblastoma is a mass of cancer cells that grow in kidney tissues. Also known as Wilms Tumour, Nephroblastoma accounts for 95 percent of kidney and renal cancers in children under the age of 14.
I didn’t have the money to help and I didn’t know anyone who was nice enough to so I did what I could – I tweeted about it and hoped it would reach those who could help. Thankfully, a kindhearted founder of an NGO contacted his mum and donated a tangible sum. Later, my friend and her son travelled to India for surgery and compulsory procedures.
They both are back to Nigeria now and D. is undergoing radiotherapy and chemotherapy. I pray his health is restored to an even better position that it was before the cancer.
The devastating feeling that came with finding out about D.’s cancer came back when I saw this demo of video game created by a father (Ryan Green) with a terminally ill child who eventually died.
Caption from YouTube posted by Gamer Assault Weekly on March 5, 2015:
“That Dragon, Cancer is an adventure game that acts as a living painting; a poem; an interactive retelling of Ryan and Amy Green’s experience raising their son Joel, a 4-year-old currently fighting his third year of terminal cancer. Players relive memories, share heartache, and discover the overwhelming hope that can be found in the face of death.” (www.ThatDragonCancer.com)”
It’s one of the saddest things that can happen to anyone – to see a child who was born in love go through so much agony.
This post is for everyone out there in this situation. Give that child all the love like there is no tomorrow.
It is well.
Photo Credit
Blackcelebkids.com – NFL Star, Devon Still with terminally ill 4 year old daughter, Leah