Dzan's Story of Hope
We need your help this festive season to ease the burden families like Dzan’s will face.
In early 2017, Dzan’s mother Maja knew something was not right.
“Call it mother’s intuition,” Maja says softly.
You see, Maja had recognised her sports-mad eight year old son, “just wasn’t himself”. He wasn’t throwing himself into soccer like he used to, and “his tennis coach commented that he wasn’t running like before…”
“Then my husband, a GP, noticed Dzan’s lymph nodes on one side of his neck were enlarged, but put it down to a virus.”
As you may have guessed, it wasn’t a virus.
Maja explains how her heart plummeted when she looked at Dzan’s neck that morning. “I noticed some bruises and I remember thinking, this looks like lymphoma – but of course, I didn’t say this out loud.”
Maja asked her husband, Almir, to order blood tests at his clinic. Within hours the phone rang and the pathologist told Maja to rush Dzan immediately to hospital.
Maja pauses, then bravely shares, “This is where I entered into a state of disbelief. For the next few months, we couldn’t believe what we were hearing. Almir asked the doctors to double check the results.”
Confronted by their son’s shock diagnosis, and the fear of what lay ahead for their only child, Maja and Almir also had to worry about finding accommodation. The family needed accommodation close to the hospital so they could stay by their little boy’s side as he began the fight for his life.
This is why our work at Fight Cancer Foundation is so important. Cancer impacts every aspect of a young family’s life and we see firsthand the emotional and financial toll it takes. For families who must travel to access lifesaving treatment, accommodation close to hospital is vital.
Before receiving accommodation support from Fight Cancer Foundation, Maja and Almir contemplated selling the family home. You see, Dzan’s treatment took nearly 12 months. With neither parent working and the bills mounting, Dzan’s parents felt despair.
In their moment of need, Fight Cancer Foundation was able to offer Maja, Almir and Dzan comfortable accommodation. It is only with your support that we can continue to provide families like Dzan’s with much-needed accommodation.
“When we were offered accommodation at Fight Cancer Foundation, it was like a big weight was lifted from our shoulders. After living in a small motel room, then walking into a two bedroom apartment, not having to bring anything was such a godsend.”
Dzan was diagnosed with the rarest form of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. Maja says, “After one month, Dzan’s doctor came to talk about the lack of progress on beating the disease. I could see the concern on the doctor’s face. ‘His results show little impact on the cancer, and he is now considered high risk.’” In other words, Dzan’s leukaemia was resistant to the chemotherapy he had been receiving.
Dzan’s only hope of beating the leukaemia was a bone marrow transplant.
“Dzan was amazing, he didn’t complain once. Once the life-saving bone marrow entered into his little body, I cried with hope. Dzan told me ‘don’t cry mummy, this is just a hurdle in my life."
It was during Dzan’s lengthy stay in hospital that Fight Cancer Foundation was again able to help. Through our education support program, Dzan was able to continue his learning.
Every day, Dzan was visited by one of the teacher’s to make sure he kept up to speed with his education.
“It was the best as it occupied his mind,” tells Maja.
Three months later Dzan was declared cancer-free. The news Maja and Almir had been desperately waiting for.
Dzan was well enough to resume school this year, and despite missing all of grade three was able to move up a grade with his peers, thanks to the education support he received during his treatment.
Maja says, “We are so relieved to have Dzan home, to see him getting healthier and stronger every day. There were times that I didn’t think it would be possible.”
“My new life as a cancer mum is very different. Now I know how common childhood cancer is and the emotional and financial stress that it places on you. Fight Cancer Foundation helped ease our burdens, making such a positive difference to our lives. Please make a generous donation to help another family facing cancer,” pleads Maja.