Abu Dhabi: A 16-year-old Emirati teenager from Al Ain has won his year-long battle with stomach cancer after his family united and decided to follow an unconventional approach of not telling him he had the life-threatening illness to keep his morale high.
On November 22, loud cheers erupted in Abu Dhabi’s arrival terminal as over 30 members of Khalifa Al Beloushi’s family celebrated his return home from the US, where he had been receiving treatment.
Children wearing T-shirts bearing Khalifa’s face jumped up and down around him, his aunts and uncles took turns to embrace him as tears streamed down their faces while another aunt offered a basket of sweets and money to bystanders.
Khalifa’s 26-year old brother, Rashid, who spent every day with his “little brother” when he was receiving his treatment, sat with Gulf News to share the inspiring story of their journey.
It all started in December last year when the then 15-year-old Khalifa complained about an unusual swelling in his leg, causing him extreme pain and discomfort. His doctor in Al Ain suspected he may have been bitten by a scorpion during a desert camping trip and advised his family to keep an eye on him.
As the swelling persisted, Rashid took his brother to a hospital in Abu Dhabi for a second opinion where he underwent a series of test and scans.
“My aunt went to the hospital with Khalifa and told me to go to work. But then she called me and she sounded terrible. She said ‘Rashid, come to the hospital now’,” said Rashid.
“She was very upset. She started crying and told me that Khalifa had cancer. I couldn’t believe it.”
Rashid said that doctors wanted to start treatment immediately and it was decided the best place for Khalifa was Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Centre in Ohio, USA. However, the news of travelling abroad for treatment made Khalifa very nervous and he started questioning his family.
“He was very worried and we didn’t want him to be scared, so we told him he had an infection in his stomach, on his lymphoma, and the best medicine was in this hospital in the US.”
By around February Khalifa, Rashid, their mother and uncle travelled to Ohio where the doctors told Khalifa he required about five to six months of chemotherapy, which once more gravely scared him.
Rashid and his family were advised that the chemotherapy would not be successful if Khalifa was not strong mentally and they should do what they could to keep his spirits high.
Rashid got very emotional as he recalled his little brother’s mental state after the doctor’s descriptive details of the side effects of chemotherapy.
“He was down, he asked me ‘do I have cancer? Isn’t chemotherapy for treating cancer?’”
Rashid said having agreed with his family that they would not use the word cancer with his brother, he calmly reassured Khalifa that chemotherapy had many uses and one of them was to treat an infection in his lymphoma.
The family also asked the hospital staff to not mention the word cancer around his bother and they obliged. The family in the UAE was advised of the same for their communications with him.
Khalifa responded well to the chemotherapy. However, the treatment did not beat the cancer in the estimated six-month time frame and he needed further treatment. The news came as a major blow to the teenager who had spent every day of those six months in the hospital, with his mother by his bedside.
Doctors decided to change Khalifa’s course of treatment. He was discharged from hospital and allowed to stay with his family. However, the new treatment required two daily visits to the hospital, five times a week, a responsibility Rashid took on. The whole family worked relentlessly to keep the 16-year-old’s mental state strong so that the pressure of the treatment would not affect his spirits.
Finally, Khalifa was given the all clear in November.
“As soon as we told him, he said ‘let’s go home’. He didn’t want to waste any time.”
Khalifa has still not been told that he had cancer and, according to Rashid, the family does not even mention the word in front of him.
Rashid believes his brother’s fearlessness in the face of the disease, prompted by his lack of knowledge about it, was instrumental in his recovery. Khalifa is now receiving routine check-ups and is slowly getting ready to return to school and normal teenage life.
