"Mom, don't worry, I'll crumple this disease like this, throw it away, and kick it. The garbage collectors will take it, and it will never come for me again!" These were the words of five-year-old Petar, comforting his mother Sanja Pavlović (35) from Loznica after he was diagnosed with blood cancer, specifically acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, in April 2020
In Serbia, as well as worldwide, February 15 is observed as the International Childhood Cancer Day, and Petar is just one of the little heroes leading this toughest battle - the battle for life.
Petar, as his mother Sanja tells Kurir, led a beautiful and carefree life until the diagnosis, like all children. He went to kindergarten, learned to read and write, and spent time with his older brother Pavle, who was nine years old at the time.
“However, in February 2020, Petar got a fever, it lasted for two or three days, and then subsided. After a few days, it returned. The initial tests did not indicate anything terrible. However, the fever kept coming back, and further tests revealed a significant drop in haemoglobin. We thought it was some temporary anaemia,” Sanja recalls
But Petar's condition worsened. The fever kept returning, and they couldn't bring it down. His parents took him to the hospital in Loznica. All tests were done, and the doctors told them that they didn't know what was going on, suggesting that the child should be taken to the University Children's Hospital "Tiršova" in Belgrade. This was also the period when the coronavirus epidemic started. The parents held onto hope, still thinking it might be a virus or something similar. They arrived at "Tiršova" on April 19, 2020.
Fear is the worst enemy
“They ran a blood test, biochemistry, and at that point, they suspected, and after that, a bone marrow puncture was performed. We did the puncture at eight in the morning, and at 9:30, the nurse came to call me to the doctor's office. That's when I knew... I sat down. The doctor told me that Petar was suffering from acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. She explained the treatment process. She said it was lengthy and arduous, but the recovery process for children with this type of leukaemia is very high. That pain, emptiness, and fear cannot be described in words. And that unbearable, inevitable question: ‘Will my child survive?’ ”
“Fear is the worst enemy,” says Sanja. “You need to be stable, calm, and smiling for your child, but fear eats away at you.” At times, she thought she wouldn't be able to bear it. When Petar fell asleep in the evening, she cried:
Tearing the Family Apart
Seeing the wife and older son from the balcony
The diagnosis of cancer in children carries not only the incredible fear of whether the child will survive but also tears apart the family.
“I was separated from my older son and husband for eight months. I stayed with the child fighting for his life, and my husband was with our older son, who had to continue with life as normally as possible. Until then, my husband and I had a beautiful family; it was really wonderful for us, and then overnight, life changed radically. There was COVID, so there were no visits either. If we're at "Tiršova", we see each other from the balcony, and if we're at the parents’ house - my husband only comes to the gate and brings what's needed,” she says, adding that it was difficult even when everything was over because it took time for them to rebuild their connection:
“You're torn apart, and the marriage is shaken, and the relationship with the children, but with love and tolerance, we managed to return everything to its original level.”
“And then one morning, we were about to go for therapy. I made coffee, sat on the balcony, looked at the sky, wiped away my tears, and told myself: ‘No, you won't cry anymore. Let's go with the therapies, and everything will be fine. He will survive; he will be a healthy boy who will continue his life.’ And that morning, I gained strength.”
On the other hand, Petar, as he says, handled everything unbelievably well. At the beginning, Sanja didn't tell him what he was sick with. However, it's hard to deceive children.
“He saw other children in the waiting room. Some were better, some worse. And then we sat down and had a conversation. I told him he had cancer, that he had leukaemia, but that our love was so strong that we would overcome all of it. He just looked at me, hugged me, and said, ‘Mom, we will win this.’ He didn't shed a tear throughout the treatment,” she recalls.
Ready for Therapy
Petar went to every therapy prepared. Sanja too, despite the fear that haunted her:
“Every night, you go to bed and wake up with the same question - will you find your child alive. However, I tried to be strong for him.”
Understanding and Support
‘Friendships for a Lifetime’
Staying at the Nurdor parent's house during therapy was recommended to Sanja by a doctor from "Tiršova":
“The stay is absolutely free. We had no expenses at all. We even had organized transportation to therapy, as well as psychological support. We were there with a family from Kraljevo and Novi Sad. We were like a family. Unfortunately, the family from Novi Sad lost their four-year-old daughter. The boy from Kraljevo was undergoing treatment for the second time, and thankfully, he is doing well. We are in constant contact with them, as well as with the family from Niš. We understand each other the best. These are friendships for a lifetime.”
The chemotherapy cycle lasted for eight months - from April to November 2020. During all that time, except when they were in the hospital, Petar and Sanja were in the parent's house of the National Association of Parents of Children with Cancer (Nurdor). The support of other families, as well as the association itself, was invaluable:
“When the doctors at ‘Tiršova’ told us after chemotherapy that there were no more malignant cells in his body, I first called friends from Nurdor on a video call. Everyone gathered; we started jumping, playing, rejoicing... Petar continued to take cytostatics for another year and a half. He goes for check-ups every six months. Although it's not written anywhere that he is cured because it is considered that a full five years must pass from the onset of the disease to be able to say with certainty that the disease will not return, Petar is doing well. He is nine years old, in the third grade, and the family has returned to normal.”
Prof Dejan Škorić
‘Success rate of healing as high as 92 percent’
Professor Dejan Škorić, Head of the Haematology Department at the "Tiršova" University Children's Hospital, said that the success rate of healing for certain types of leukaemia is as high as 92 percent, and early detection and accurate diagnosis affect recovery:
“Leukaemia is a malignant blood disease and the most common disease of this type in childhood. The most important division is into acute and chronic leukaemia, with 95 to 99 percent being acute in childhood, and only one to five percent being chronic granulocytic leukaemia. The disease starts suddenly and is most often manifested by blood count disturbances that lead to numerous symptoms and signs. Children have an elevated body temperature, they are pale, easily get tired, have spots and bruises on the skin, loss of appetite, and sometimes severe bone pain. Leukaemias occur from the earliest age to 18 years old.”.
“All families facing the fact that their child has cancer wonder why this happened. But there is no explanation. Doctors don't have it, and neither do we. It's important to fight and know that the diagnosis is not the end. It doesn't matter how many times you fall; what matters is how many times you get up,” concludes this brave woman.
Kurir.rs
