Stories of HOPE

My daughter's life on my shoulders

Little Fatma arrived in a coma. She left nine months later, smiling. Her father Khalid Ibrahim recalls the long months.

When we boarded the plane for Singapore, I was carrying the weight of my little girl's life in my hands. Fatma was just three, and very sick. She was in a coma, and the doctors told me she would not make it. Not long for this world.

When I called Singapore and asked for treatment, there was a glimmer of hope. But the doctors at home told me that the flight was a huge risk. "I can't authorise it, she won't make it," the doctor said.

"What should I do?" I asked.

"You take the matter into your own hands, you be responsible," he told me.

So I did. I'll be responsible. The seven hours was the longest in my life. We had a doctor and a nurse taking care of her, and Fatma was quiet throughout. I slept too, because the two days leading up to the flight were very busy, lots of things to prepare.

One of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen was when I looked down from my plane, to the runway in Singapore. I saw the ambulances, the people standing by to help us.

"They are ready," I thought, and a bit of the load left my shoulders. After we got down from the plane, the team swung into action.

When Fatma was evacuated, she had been sedated and supported by a mechanical ventilator. After we touched down, the staff took Fatma from the plane to the ambulance and I think within 10 minutes, they were in the hospital.

We followed in a car. We arrived in the afternoon of a hot, sunny day. It was like new hope for us.

Fatma has a metastatic Wilm's tumour, a type of kidney cancer seen sometimes in children. The surgeon back home had referred her to a Singapore doctor, Dr Ang Peng Tiam, because she had a very large tumour which was sitting in her chest. It was so big that it was pushing the heart to the right. So, her lungs could not work as well as they should.

The cancer was growing very fast.

The first thing the doctors did was to operate on her to try and take out some of the cancer. But when that happened, and when they opened up the chest, the tumour bled massively.

In the end, they took a small biopsy.

My wife and I were just stunned. Does this mean the surgery was a failure?

What was left to be done?

What could we do? This was already the third time we had come to Singapore.

When we left, they told us, OK, nothing to be worried about. The cancer is gone.

"Minimal activity" they told us. And now, just a few months later, we are back.

We didn't know what to think.

The doctors said that the tumour is "very vascular". It can bleed spontaneously.

In fact, they told us the tumour was already bleeding before they operated.

We sat in the room, we didn't talk because there were no words left.

Each day, baby Fatma bled about 300 ml of blood. That is just bags and bags, dripping out. We sat in the room, prayed, cried, just looked at each other.

The doctors were desperate. One day, Dr Ang sat down with us.

"The only option – proceed with chemotherapy," he said. He explained that administering chemotherapy while a patient is on a respirator, as Fatma was, was very rare. These patients are often too sick to tolerate chemotherapy. She could also die because there is a risk of death from infection associated with chemotherapy. The risk was high but, he said, "We had no choice."

"Of course, we had a choice – the choice between life and death. And like the ride on the plane, I chose life for my little girl." Each day, the team of three doctors would come, look at the charts, anxiously tallying the amount of blood coming from the chest and replacing the same amount by transfusing little Fatma with blood.

After one week, the amount of blood loss began to decline. By the third week, she was well enough to be taken off the respirator. By this time, she was awake. She could see me.

The first thing she did was to play with my handphone, and she smiled when she saw a photo of her little brother in it. My wife had Fatma's ears pierced when she was a year old. We put her little gold earrings back when they took her off the respirator. They twinkled when she turned and smiled at us.

Each day, over eight months, we saw her improving. There was less bleeding. The cancer was getting smaller – we could see this in the scans the doctors did.

Each night, we would go back to the apartment near the hospital, pack what we needed and go back to the hospital. It was near enough to walk if we wanted to, or we could take a taxi.

We wanted to be close because the doctors told us that there was a chance that the "tumour could 'break loose' despite treatment". So, they did a second operation to remove the shrunken tumour.

That was when my wife told me: "It's over. She is well now." And she went out and bought candy for everyone. It was the first time I had seen her laugh out loud for a very long time. And I could see the joy in the doctors' eyes too. For them now, every ward round is a celebration!

"Just watching her run around and making mischief makes my day every day!" Dr Ang told me. He also said Fatma has about a 15 per cent chance of reaching an adult lifespan. But I don't dwell on that too much.

Now, every morning, I look forward to waking up, and bringing my little girl out for lunch. She loves McDonald's and shopping. I would eat a Happy Meal with her every day, if this is what she wants. We bring her shopping because her immunity is strong enough now to go out.

Can you imagine? Going out to Toys "R" Us when the doctor back home told us that there is no hope. Look at this – there are 10 Barbie dolls from our trips there.

I called the doctor back home. He could not believe that she is still alive. She is shouting and running, and talking to him.

She loves stickers and colouring. Her appetite is fantastic.

We are going home. Fatma is going to school. She has never been to school.

Her mother thinks she wants to be a doctor. I don't care about that really. I just like to watch her laugh.

Khalid Ibrahim, 35, works in the petroleum industry. His wife, Aida, is 29. Aside from Fatma, they have a one-year-old son. They left Singapore on 10 May.