The Skinless Project Inspirational Woman September 2011: Sereen Abdel-Moneim
“Health is a crown worn on the head of a person but it is only seen by the sick” – Arabic Proverb
When you think of brave people, you think of firefighters, policemen, and even sky divers. What if there was one little girl that was braver than all of them combined? That little girl is Sereen Abdelmoneim. She was diagnosed with cancer (Wilm’s Tumor) in December 2010. This young girl has overcome chemotherapy and hair loss, two of the biggest fears that cancer patients face every day, while still having a warm smile on her face and blue eyes that beam confidence and strength. She is an example of what girls and women inspire to be. At such a young age she has become a well-known role model of children and cancer patients thanks to her father’s blog: Rested Heart which follows Sereen and her family’s journey with cancer. Today, she is being honored by the Skinless Project as an inspiration to girls and women everywhere. Follow Asma an Eiman’s journey with some excerpts from Rested Heart and get to know our Skinless Project honoree and her family as they face challenges with determination and unwavering patience!
Your World Can Change in a Minute (Dec 18 2010)
It is close to midnight as I sit in the Pediatric Intensive Care
Unit at the Hope Children’s Center Hospital next to my two and half year
old daughter who has just come out of surgery to remove what looks like
at this point to be a cancerous Wilms’ tumor growing from her right kidney*.
It was a little over 48 hours ago that my wife and three kids were at home finishing packing for our winter family trip to Florida. I was coaching the championship game of my 8 year old daughter’s park district basketball league. As one would imagine, the stands were filled with the parents and families of all the kids, including my own.
During the course of the game, my wife’s cousin whose daughter is on our team held my 2 year old daughter. As she carried her, she noticed a hardness to the right side of her stomach. Concerned, she turned to another family friend who happens to also be a pediatrician and asks him to feel the stomach.
Thirty minutes after the game I found myself at my in-law’s house observing a council of doctor’s (my father in law is a pediatrician) that included a family friend, one of the premier pediatric oncologists in the Chicago area. After doing a quick exam of my daughter, he turns to my wife and I and tells us there is a large growth in the right abdominal area and that we needed to immediately check in to the cancer floor of the Hope Center to begin a battery of CT and ultrasound tests to determine what was going on.
The next day the tests were clear. A large tumor, growing off her right kidney, with all the tell tale signs of a Wilms’ tumor. Surgery had to be scheduled immediately to remove the tumor and biopsy the surrounding organs.
24 hours later and I sit in the ICU next to my sleeping daughter. The surgery has been deemed a success thus far and early indications are positive.
You always hear that your life can change in a heartbeat. I woke up on Wednesday thinking tomorrow starts our vacation, having no idea of what was in store.
* The Tumor was later diagnosed to be a stage III Wilms’ tumor with favorable histology
On Losing Hair
It was week six that Sereen’s hair began to fall. Not thin. Fall. Hair spread all around on her pillow in the morning or after a nap. Hair falling in her oatmeal. Hair on her sister’s shirt after playing. Simply running your hand through her hair would leave sheddings in your palm. Tiny balls of hair in the carpet in the family room, leftover from when Sereen was doing her puzzle in that exact spot.
My wife and I knew this would happen and thought we were prepared. We
had taken the preemptive step of giving Sereen a “boy cut” in week two,
the idea being that with her hair short, the hair loss would be less dramatic
of a change (for both her and us). We would see the other kids at the hospital
with that “cancer patient look” - some younger than Sereen and others much
older, boys and girls, either completely bald or with straw remnants of
hair. Despite this all, when the time had finally arrived for Sereen’s
hair cells to succumb to the pressure of the chemo, the emotions that ensued
were unexpected.
I have come to believe that the single most powerful force at play
and driving these emotions is metaphysical. For when I look into Sereen’s
beautiful blue eyes, I realize that her eyes are a window into her “true
self”, her soul. The ravages of chemo on the physical body - the paleness
of the skin, the weight loss, the shedding of the hair, lays bare that
soul in the cancer patient for us to see, as clear as day, with the eyes
of our heart. No longer distracted by the mirage of physical ornaments,
we see the pearl that is inside.
And to the person who is not used to “seeing” with the eyes of the heart, it is unsettling.
Too Young To
Sereen is too young to:
- Comprehend just how serious a diagnosis of cancer is.
- Hear and understand all the possible side effects of chemotherapy and thus have a hypochondriac like imagining that she is suffering from these side effects.
- Dwell on a bad thing that happened even if it happened a couple of minutes before. Give her an opportunity to take home a gift from the treasure chest and she will forget that she was crying five minutes ago when the nurse was disconnecting the I.V. from her.
- Go into depression at the prospect of losing her hair.
- Not to fall for the same bribe over and over - “if you let the nurse take a look at your tummy you can have this lollipop”.
- Ask “why me” for getting a cancer that is so rare that there are only about 500 cases a year in the United States.
- Lose sleep over what might have happened in the past (if only we noticed it earlier) or what the future might hold (complete remission? or no? long term side effects?).
- Get “cabin fever” having to be essentially stuck in the house for 6 months to avoid contact with germs and infections.
- Have to worry about what her friends, peers are going to say about her.
-
Care about any relationship except the love and attention of her mother
and father, the joy of playing with her siblings.
The End of a Phase
This past Monday was week 25. Sereen’s final chemotherapy treatment. The
completion of a phase.
In another display of sensitivity, care, and class that they have shown
throughout, the whole staff of the
Keyser
Family Pediatric Cancer Clinic
sang a song for Seeren
when she was done with receiving her chemo. Sung to the tune
of “Oh Suzanna”, they sang to Sereen about being cured from illness,
of a bright future ahead. Poignant moment.
Later that day I called Dr. Ammar Hayani , one of the Oncologists on staff and a family friend. It was Dr. Hayani who sat in my father-in-law’s living room late that December evening to look at her right abdominal area, an area that another physician friend had felt earlier that evening and knew that something wasn’t normal. Dr. Hayani looked my wife and I in the eye and told us we had to go to the hospital, that whatever it was, it wasn’t good and tests needed to be performed as soon as possible.
I called to thank Dr. Hayani for everything he had done to date. I
expressed to him how my wife and I, although happy to have achieved this
milestone, realized that the journey wasn’t over. His response tells
you all you need to do about Ammar:
“Eiman, celebrate today. Sereen has done wonderfully, she is strong. I
have no doubts that she will do well from this point forward.”
But despite the milestone, we know that the journey is not done. I call it being in phase three. The first phase was Sereen having a three pound tumor ravaging her right kidney and concluded with the surgery to remove both. The second phase began after surgery and can be called the treatment phase, where radiation and chemotherapy were employed to get rid of the cancer. Now we are in the third phase, remission of the cancer, monitoring, and scans.
Please support the Abdelmoniem family to raise funds to support collaborative research to find a cure for all cancers affecting children by helping them achieve their fundraising goal in the CureSearch for Children’s Cancer in Chicago, IL that took place on September 10, 2011.