Cancer wants to take our son! Save Max – the life which has already begun.

Mum, what have I done wrong? Why do I have to be in hospital? – my heart is broken when the child asks such questions. How can I explain him that it’s not his fault? How to understand that all of these days full of pain are necessary, so that his life won’t end the age of 4? How to explain him we need a huge amount of money to save his health?

Cancer doesn’t ask for permission to come to our lives. For the last year our life has looked like the walk through the hell. In oncological hospital we are overwhelmed by fear of our beloved son. His sorrow and tears are hard to describe. Now we are begging for help because only expensive treatment can give him a chance to overcome cancer and death.

Neuroblastoma – a type of cancer that forms of nerve tissue – 4 stage – the worst. Metastasis to the bone narrow and bones. It’s a type of cancer which attacks only small children. Half of the patients are not even two during diagnosis. Max was 3 when our nightmare began. In March 2017he started to have a pain in his leg. At that time nobody even assumed that it could be a tumor in his stomach. The doctors treated Max for arthritis but he was getting weaker and weaker. Then somebody noticed that Max’s stomach looks big and he was sent to USG examination.

2nd April 2017 – that was the day which we will never forget. The day when Max’s childhood was brutally finished. The war with cancer began. The tumor in Max’s stomach was at the size of two fists, 15x14x13 centimeters. That spring was supposed to be the most wonderful time in our life. We were expecting a second baby, Max was so excited. Instead of happily expectation, we faced horror. In June our baby boy was born, whereas our older son was fighting the battle of his life. It’s hard to explain that situation: cancer, chemotherapy, metastasis, prognosis. We were waiting for the light in the tunnel but chemo didn’t work. Max was weak, full of pain but the cancer didn’t want to give up.

In October we took Max to another hospital – Centrum Zdrowia Dziecka. There he got another type of chemo that started to work. Finally, the tumor started to shrink and metastasis disappeared. One year after diagnosis Max had two complicated surgeries. Unfortunately, a small part or the tumor still remained in our son’s body. The illness is controlled but it doesn’t mean that Max is free of cancer. That’s why we are heading for mega chemotherapy and autologous stem cell transplant and the radiotherapy. The final treatment for high risk neuroblastoma is Immunotheraphy. Its aim is to destroy all of these small cancer cells and to prevent a relapse which appears so often… Immunotheraphy gives us a chance that cancer will never come back, but is not refunded – one dose of a cure costs 10 000 euro. Max needs 20 doses which means that we have to collect more than 200 000 euros! Thanks to many people we managed to collect a part of this amount but it is still too little.

Max is so strong and so brave. He only wants to be healthy, and to have a normal childhood. No child should spend time in oncological hospital. We only dream of being a normal family, waking up in the morning, taking Max to kindergarten, reading fairy tales and watching him playing with his younger brother. That’s why we ask for your help!