Funding Research into Sepsis in honour of Jibraan Chaudhary

Website: www.jcsr.org.uk

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On the 16th Nov 2024, we lost our dear 18-year old son Jibraan to sepsis associated with the chemotherapy he was receiving for an aggressive form of Acute Myeloid Leukemia. The JCSR Foundation is focussed on funding innovative research to avoid leukemia patients in future suffering the same fate.

Jibraan was born in 2006, the first of our three children; he is the elder brother of our younger 14-year old son Orhaan, and his sister Larisaa who is 7. After his passing, we went through the exercise of collecting all the photographs of Jibraan’s 18 years, and were reminded of his amazing experiences, his always joking and humorous outlook on life – never a straight face in a photograph. The countries we’ve lived in, the holidays we’ve had. His different interests as he grew up – loving skiing, swimming, playing ice-hockey and rugby. Of course, like any other young man, Jibraan loved playing video games and watching movies. Jibraan had experienced so much, but at the same time, had so much to offer.

At his core, Jibraan cared about everything and everyone. He always had an opinion, and regardless of who he spoke to, he always challenged the other’s thinking, sometimes to show-off his own knowledge, but mostly, to challenge so he could fully understand the logic of another’s point of view.

Jibraan had ambitions. He loved maths and physics, excelled at these subjects and was planning to start university in Sep 2024 for a degree in Theoretical Physics. A recent condolence email from one of Jibraan’s A-Levels maths teacher, indicated that sometimes the teacher had to go home and brush-up on degree-level maths, because he knew that the following day, Jibraan would challenge him beyond the syllabus on the subject matter of the lesson.

But all that changed in 6 Aug 2024, when after suffering for a few weeks of flu-like symptoms, he was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of Acute Myeloid Leukemia. On 15th Aug 2024, the day he was to find out his A-level results and begin the next chapter of his life, he lay on day 6 of a medically induced coma, on a ventilator, following major surgery on his lungs to remove built-up fluid, driven by a massive influx of leukemia cells into his lungs. On that very day, we were told that due to inflammatory complications (Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, ARDS), he was unlikely to survive the next 24hrs.

He did… 7 days later he was woken-up and spent the following 4 days battling with Intensive Care delirium.

The sheer mental strength that Jibraan was so humble about shone through

and a few days later, he was discharged from intensive care back to the cancer care ward, but only for a few days.

The leukemia cells infiltrated the cavity around his heart, and whereas you or I would have about 30ml of fluid around our heart, in the case of Jibraan, this amassed to over 2 litres.

Another surgical procedure to insert a drain to remove the liquid, Jibraan bounced back quickly and after a few days returned to the ward, and three weeks after a second round of intensive chemotherapy, Jibraan demonstrated the tenacity and determination to pick himself back up, and recovered to have a 10-day break from hospital, back at home.

He recovered well; his leukemia was in remission. All that separated him from the life-saving stem cell transplant was a third round of chemotherapy.

On October 14th Jibraan went back to hospital for his third round, and smashed his way through it. Despite the strength of the drugs, he kept positive, walking, talking and joking with everyone in his usual cheeky and sarcastic manner. The only thing stopping him from going home for another break, was waiting for his bone marrow to start making white blood cells again. After rounds 1 and 2, it took 21 days – the countdown was on again.

But this time, on day 18, he developed a strange rash on his leg. This rash grew bigger and bigger, after several days and several tests, it was diagnosed as a cellulitis (infection of the skin.) He was prescribed several antibiotics, however none seemed to be alleviating the rash, in fact it got bigger and bigger. Culturing a swab of the area showed that it was a bacterial infection – self-infected from bacteria that normally lives in his gut. The bacteria gained resistance to the mainstream antibiotics he had been on for 3 months as part of his treatment, but was responsive to some of the more specialised antibiotics kept in reserve by doctors. By time he was prescribed them, the bacteria had mutated again and gained resistance to even those.

Without any of the body’s own defence mechanisms (white blood cells – neutrophils) which had been wiped out by the chemotherapy, very quickly, the infection got out of control and began to have body-wide effects – Sepsis. He was admitted to ICU for a third time on November 10th. On the 16th November 2024, Jibraan suffered multiple organ failure due to the sepsis, and passed away surrounded by his family.

We will never understand why Allah decided to take Jibraan so early; it is the biggest mystery of life – all we do know, is that it is part of His bigger plan. As muslims, we firmly believe that death is simply part of an ongoing journey, and whilst he is away from us now, we will be reunited after our own deaths. The only thing that we can do now is pray for Jibraan. Pray that The Almighty forgives him of any wrongdoings he committed in his earthly life. One of the only other things we can do for Jibraan is perform good deeds on his behalf. One category of these deeds is dissemination of beneficial knowledge with everlasting effects.

It is this that forms the basis of the JCSR foundation. Our goal, is to fund medical research into sepsis associated with chemotherapy, for the progression of leukemia survival and to maximise the rewards for the on-going good deeds that Allah will impart to Jibraan. We want to ensure that in future, the mortality of leukopenic sepsis in leukemia patients is eliminated.