#sarcoma

Hello, my name is Wafa. My family and I are from Gaza, and we have experienced unimaginable suffering since the war began. We have been displaced five times, losing everything—our home, belongings, and even our sense of security.

The most devastating loss was my father, who passed away on 30/11/2024 🕊️💔. He was the heart of our family, a man full of love and strength. He was battling sarcoma, a painful and aggressive type of cancer. Before the war, he was receiving chemotherapy, but as the war escalated, access to medical care became impossible. We couldn’t even provide him with basic pain relief or nutritious food.

We watched helplessly as his health deteriorated day by day under inhumane conditions. Losing him has left us broken and devastated.

Now, I live with my mother, my three sisters—Nadeen, Walaa, and Liqaa—and my two brothers, Mohamed and Ali, in a tent on our own. We struggle with everything, unable to provide for ourselves or meet even the most basic needs. The tent offers little protection, and we lack access to clean water, food, and proper sanitation. Every day is a challenge just to survive, and the uncertainty of our future weighs heavily on us all.

Your support can make an enormous difference in our lives. It will help us rebuild and regain some stability after losing everything. No donation is too small—every act of kindness brings us closer to a chance for healing and survival.

Donation Link: https://gofund.me/e6d3aee2

From the depths of my heart, I thank you for your compassion and generosity.

Wafa

✅ Our Campaign ✅

🔍 Vetted by @90-ghost here

🔍 Vetted by association in this post

. . . A comic I made to help me cope with the unmeasurable weight of having a heartbreaking diagnosis.

Tribute to the greatest youtuber and minecraft player to ever live; Technoblade.

Happy World Cancer Day! The drawing is a bit rushed, but I just wanted to post a tribute to Technoblade.

Technoblade was the person who would have enemies and turn them into friends. Allies. His jokes always made his viewers laugh, including me, even after a bad day. He's the type of creator who's content you'll get hooked to. You watch one video and then proceed to watch the rest. There will never be another like him.

Note: this was originally written when I was 16 years old for an essay. I just copy and pasted and edited.

I love running. I always have. I’d run for hours if I could.

At age 14 (May), while I was stretching, I bent my leg and noticed a weird mushy lump on my shin. I pressed on it and it didn’t hurt so I ignored it.

I finished the 7km race in second. When I went to get water, I noticed some pain on my other leg. It felt like it was in a very specific spot but I didn’t see anything. I assumed I just had a bruise that was healing or something.

I kept racing. I kept doing it because I loved it.

I turned 15 in June and nothing went wrong.

At the November race, I noticed another spot on the same leg. The spot from before, the spot that was painful, now also had a bump, it was a little more firm though. I pressed on the new spot and it was squishy just like the other one. All of them would disappear when I stood up straight, so I ignored it.

I ran the 5km race and finished in fourth.

Some time after that, I felt some pain in my left knee. I looked at it and there wasn’t anything. Until, in March, while I was fishing, my Dad noticed a large lump under my right knee cap. With the way I was standing, he could also see all the other bumps. I had only seen a few of them but, now, from this angle, my dad could see all of them. He had me reel in my line and he went to look at it. The only ones that didn’t disappear were the original bump on my right shin and the giant one under my knee. I hadn’t even noticed that one.

My Dad was worried, so he showed my mom. I insisted that I was fine. They didn’t listen. I went to the doctor that same month and an ultrasound was scheduled for the bumps on my shins and they wanted to do a biopsy on the spot on my knee.

I got the biopsy and ultrasound results in April.

At age 15, I was diagnosed with stage III epithelioid sarcoma.

In total, I had 9 tumors in my legs. The doctors decided that surgery would be the best course of action.

They worked on my left leg first.

I went into surgery four times over the course of one summer: once for the tumor in my knee, once for the other three in my left leg, once for two of the bigger tumors on my right leg, and once for the last three.

The doctors told me that, in order to make sure they got it all, I would have to go through chemotherapy and radiation.

I started treatment almost immediately. I looked up the side effects one of the main ones, and most well known one, was hair loss. I was kinda scared about that because I was already insecure enough. I didn’t need anything else.

A week after my 16th birthday, I was able to have a birthday party after my last surgery. We did an inflatable water slide, cookout, and games.

I hadn’t started losing hair until May. It was very gradual and I was able to hide it for the birthday party.

Now, after a year of being cancer free, I love randomly, no context, asking my friends, “could you imagine if I was bald?”

I make jokes about it now and am silly about it but, at the time, I was scared. I was worried that I would die in the hospital or during treatments, that I wouldn’t be able to say goodbye to my friends, that I wouldn’t be able to fulfil the dreams I had, and still have.

…