It's only been one and a half months, but it feels like we've been through a lifetime.
On April 3, a normal Saturday morning, the girls were playing and crawling around together. At some point Shahar seemed tired, so we put her to bed for her usual morning nap. In retrospect, this is the last moment when Shahar was just Shahar - sweet, smiling, playful and bright. Just a few moments later, she vomited in her bed, and despite our efforts we could not wake her. She was totally foggy: waking up, crying and falling back asleep. We realized something was not normal and hastily packed a bag and sped to the emergency room.
Everything that happened from that moment on feels unrelated to us, unrelated to Shahar. In the emergency room Shahar's condition deteriorated rapidly.
Within a few hours she was anesthetized and headed in for a CT scan. The CT left no room for doubt - our baby's little head had a tumor. It was big, clear, scary and shattered our world in an instant.
From Haemek Hospital we traveled in an intensive care ambulance to Rambam Hospital where Shahar went straight to emergency surgery to insert a drainage tube into her head. 12 hours after we’d put her to bed at home, Shahar is lying in an operating room - fighting for her life.
We had barely even started to grasp what was happening and within 3 days, Shahar already underwent another operation, during which most of the tumor was removed. Then we got the final diagnosis: this is a rare brain cancer called ATRT. It felt not only like life turning upside down but that the sky is falling on us with full force.
We have been living in the oncology ward, which no one ever imagines entering, for a month and a half. Not working, dividing our lives between Shahar and Noam, her big sister...trying to maintain sanity and strength.
Shahar is currently undergoing difficult and aggressive chemotherapy. The stage of treatment, in the hope Shahar's condition permits it, is that we will fly to New Jersey to undergo radiation treatment unavailable in Israel. When we return, Shahar will undergo more chemotherapy and it is clear to us that we are just at the start of this journey and there’s no telling when it will end.
And within all this darkness there is one little thing that shines and illuminates our soul and gives us hope, and that is Shahar. Our sweet baby is an amazing and powerful superhero who fights with a strength we did not know existed at all. She gives us the strength to get up every morning and fight for her.
And despite all this positivity we're seeking to maintain, we need your help. We must give Shahar the best chance there is! And so that we can travel to the US for Shahar's treatments and stay there as a family, and also continue to be by her side when we return, we need you with us.
Please help Shahar and give her everything she needs so she can continue to shine and enlighten our lives.
Please, any amount no matter how small will help.
With gratitude, Ayelet, Amichai, Noam and Shachar ❤
#keep_shining
