Help Kedem and his family get through cancer

Kedem Sunrise Weisberg is a 9-year-old boy recently diagnosed with aggressive brain cancer. His family needs our help to get through this difficult time.

קדם סאנרייז וייסברג הוא ילד בן 9 שאובחן לאחרונה עם סרטן מוח אגרסיבי ומתקדם. משפחתו

זקוקה לעזרתנו בתקופה הקרובה

ישראלים שמעדיפים לתרום דרך פייבוקס יכולים דרך הקישור

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Kedem Sunrise Weisberg is the 9-year-old son of our dear friends, Shoshana and Reuven Weisberg. He is a sweet, funny, and amazingly smart third-grader with shining eyes and an impish grin.

On January 29, 2023, Kedem was diagnosed with an extremely aggressive form of medulloblastoma, a malignant and life-threatening pediatric brain cancer.

Kedem’s cancer, though only recently diagnosed, is already considered late-stage, having metastasized significantly throughout his entire brain and spinal cord.

Update 2/20: Kedem has been responding to treatments and was recently released to outpatient care at home, but must return every weekday morning for chemo and radiation treatments at Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Israel. Returning to the hospital for half-time care will likely be necessary in the coming weeks.

Kedem had begun experiencing painful and confusing symptoms in the weeks prior to his hospitalization, including headaches, nausea, vision problems, and severe dizziness. It soon became clear that the source of his symptoms was in fact an aggressive, malignant brain tumor. Since then, his symptoms have worsened and continue to become increasingly complicated.

Upon receiving this devastating diagnosis, Kedem was immediately admitted to the PICU. In the first week following diagnosis, he underwent two small brain surgeries followed by a procedure for retrieving bone marrow stem cells, which will likely be needed for future treatment.

Kedem has now begun an intense six-week period of daily chemotherapy coupled with high-dose craniospinal photon radiation. If all goes well, this intensive six-week course of treatment will likely be followed by another brain surgery and additional sixth-month period of high-dose chemotherapy. These extreme doses of radiation and chemotherapy mean that Kedem will inevitably face significant side effects for the rest of his life, yet they are nevertheless overwhelmingly necessary given the aggressive nature of his cancer.

Kedem Sunrise and the Weisberg Family

Kedem is an incredibly sweet, uniquely curious, and fiercely bright boy who is adored by all who know him. He loves playing the drums, reading comics, playing Minecraft, Pokemon, Star Wars, Harry Potter, playing with legos, reading books, hearing Ba’al Shem Tov stories, doing mad libs, learning new things, joking around, and being with his family and friends.

His parents, Shosh and Reuven, are veteran immigrants (olim) in Israel and pillars of the Pardes Hanna community. They are both beloved educators: Shosh, as a lecturer and teacher of organic gardening and youth education; and Reuven, as a guide and teacher for Israel tour groups. They are extraordinarily warm, kind, and hardworking people, and their three children—Shemaiah, Kedem, and Tiferet—are well-known and well-loved within their community and beyond.

The Weisbergs are an incredibly strong family blessed with a wonderful network of friends and loved ones, very much a testament to their own loving, generous hearts. They luckily have some relatives in Israel, yet their parents and most of their immediate/extended families live in the United States.

Current Challenges

The ongoing emotional and logistic difficulty of this life-altering experience is enormous and far-reaching. Israel thankfully has universal healthcare, which means that Kedem’s essential hospital costs are covered. However, Israel also has one of the highest cost-of-living rates in the world and the Weisberg family faces many additional, overwhelming expenses—including both medical (in terms of supplemental treatments, therapies, current care, and post-treatment care) and personal (in terms of managing their current reality and shouldering everyday living costs as a family of five).

Shosh and Reuven are currently completely immersed in Kedem’s treatment journey (including long-term hospitalization, complicated medical decisions, and intensive treatments) and in caring for their other two children at home. As such, they have each taken leave from work so that they can focus on their family. For the time being, Shosh and Reuven spend their days running between the hospital in Haifa and their home in Pardes Hanna in an attempt to juggle the logistical and emotional elements of their current situation.

This challenging financial reality is compounded by the still-unknown extent of Kedem’s treatment and expected future medical condition.

Expenses

Rambam Medical Center is an hour’s drive away from the Weisbergs’ home in Pardes Hanna, where Shosh and Reuven’s other two children are in kindergarten and 5th grade. With at least one parent at Kedem’s side 24/7, a significant part of our efforts is focused on enabling the other two kids to continue their lives with as little disruption as possible, while also taking into consideration all additional expenses related to Kedem’s current treatment protocol and expected future medical condition.

Given the fast-moving and extensive nature of Kedem’s disease, we don’t yet have a full picture of all the funds that will be needed to support him and his family throughout this time. However, we are currently doing a sweep of all potential needs—current and future—and allowing the picture to crystalize day by day. We will update this campaign any time: 1) a necessary expense becomes clearer; 2) an existing need becomes irrelevant; or 3) something new needs to be added.

All funds will be given directly to the family and allocated for the following items:

God willing, any surplus funds will be donated to fund childhood cancer research.

Thank you so much for your help and may we hear positive news soon!

Praying that Kedem and all other sufferers of this terrible disease have a quick and painless recovery.

Kedem Sunrise ben Shoshana Tsiporah

קדם סאנרייז בן שושנה ציפורה