Razan’s Journey of Success and Recovery

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RazanA young patient at CCHE named Razan traveled to Egypt from Saudi Arabia with her mother last year. At just the tender age of 12, Razan was diagnosed with non-Hodgekin Lymphoma (NHL) two years ago. Her voyage to Egypt, her parents homeland, was determined by the reputation of Children’s Cancer Hospital Egypt 57357 (CCHE) as the facility that would provide Razan with the best treatment possible, at no cost to her parents.

As she began to lose her hair during her chemotherapy treatment, Razan began to feel even more self-conscious than usual. Her emotional state was compounded by the absence of not only her friends but also of her father, who had to stay in Saudi Arabia to work. Her loneliness and despair were so extreme that she went so far as to attempt to run away from CCHE.

After this event Razan had regular visits with the CCHE psychiatrist, Dr. Mohamed El Shami, as well as the team of social workers. Their efforts, in conjunction with complete devotion and care from her mother, helped Razan find the strength to shift her attitude, converting her pain into strength and her sadness into success.

Her success is exemplified not only by her recovery from cancer, as her physician Dr. Emad Moussa stated, but also by her perserverance to study and complete her final exams while undergoing treatment at the hospital. Despite her hardships, Razan celebrated her healthy body as well as having passed all of her subjects and graduated from primary school.

Today Razan is happy and full of life. She pays visits to CCHE from time to time for her checkups. When asked what she learned from her treatment, she replied, with a twinkle in her eye, “”I learned that I will eat a lot of chocolate, as I was forbidden to eat it throughout the treatment period”. Razan has rediscovered her zeal for life.

Equally at ease are her parents – Razan’s mother is grateful and confident in her daughter’s strength, saying she was thankful for the excellent quality care her daughter has received at 57357. ”Merely giving thanks is just not enough; everything in [CCHE] is perfect, from the housekeeping to the physicians, they all work together so well to comfort us and cure our children”.

Since the publication of this webpost, Razan has made her return to Saudi Arabia, reunited with her family and enjoying the next phase of her life.

 

 

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The ECN Tri-State Chapter, consisting of volunteers based in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, will be hosting a fundraising dinner and presentation on Saturday, March 30th, 2013 at the Garden City Hotel in Garden City, NY.

The event will commence at 6.30 pm with a reception and registration, followed by dinner and the main event at 7.00 pm. Keynote speaker Dr. Sherif Abouelnaga, the Vice President of CCHE 57357, will be in attendance.

Tickets will be $200 each. For more information, please refer to the above flier.

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ECN’s Chicago Chapter hosted a Teddy Bear drive in collaboration with Adventist Midwest Health and the National Arab American Medical Association (NAAMA) in order to provide children at the Adventist Bolingbrook Hospital with teddy bears around the holiday season.

The Chicago Chapter set up donation points throughout Chicago at which they could accept new teddy bear donations to send to the hospital. Collection efforts resulted in a final total of over 150 teddy bears, which were distributed to children in the pediatric and emergency sections at the Adventist Bolingbrook Hospital.

Mrs. Mary Alexander-Basta, the ECN Chicago Chapter leader, said, ”We hope [that through this effort] we make a child’s holiday a little brighter.”

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Dr. Mohamed El Beltagy, the chief neurosurgeon at CCHE 57357, was sponsored by ECN to attend the 2012 International Symposium on Pediatric Neuro-Oncology (ISPNO) held in Toronto, Canada from June 24th – 26th, 2012. This was the 15th annual ISPNO and was attended by many distinguished doctors and surgeons from all around the world.

Dr. El Beltagy made three presentations while at ISPNO, entitled “The Benefits of Navigated Intra-Operative Ultrasonography During Resection of Posterior Fossa Tumors in Children”, Integrating Treatment Protocol Monitoring System with Real-Time Statistics: A Research-Oriented, In-House Developed Solution” and “Hypofractionated Radiotherapy for Pediatric Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma”, respectively. The last won him an award from ISPNO. Because Dr. El Beltagy’s excellent representation, CCHE 57357’s work was held in high esteem for the duration of the conference.

Dr. El Beltagy has been working at CCHE since its opening in 2007 and completes an average of 200 brain tumor operations per year. He was trained in Zurich University Hospital in Zurich, Switzerland, and was also sponsored by the American Association of Neurological Surgeons to participate in a fellowship for pediatric neurosurgery at Children’s Hospital Boston.

ECN prides itself on furthering the education of CCHE’s staff and therefore sponsors the best and the brightest to attend various international pediatric oncology events. It is people like Dr. Mohamed El Beltagy that brings meaning to ECN’s education initiative.