Help My Husband Khaled Get Vital Cancer Surgery
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My husband Khaled Hassouna was diagnosed with an extremely rare and aggressive form of Sarcoma cancer (Desmoplastic Small Round Cell Tumor-DSRCT) right before our two-year wedding anniversary. A DSRCT diagnosis is heartbreaking and terrifying as it targets the young (majority males 11-30 years old) and has a 15% five-year survival rate.
At the time of Khaled’s diagnosis we were separated by an ocean and thousands and thousands of miles. I was in North Carolina with the coronavirus swiftly spreading and he was home in the Occupied West Bank, Palestine waiting as I tried to navigate the process of applying for his spousal visa to the U.S.
One night in mid-April, 2020 as NC was adjusting to the new reality of shelter in place, I received a call at 1am from the West Bank. Khaled had been rushed to the hospital unconscious, frail beyond recognition he had finally collapsed under the excruciating pain the spreading, undiagnosed cancer was causing his weak body—and just like that our lives, hopes, dreams and plans for the future were shattered.
Scans showed multiple tumors, they incorrectly suspected it was lymphoma, a biopsy was urgently needed to confirm but his parents didn’t have the funds to cover it. As quickly as I could figure out how, the money was wired to them for the procedure.
In the hours between that call with my in-laws and when I finally received solid information from Khaled’s English-speaking doctor, I was gripped by a terror unlike anything I had ever experienced. Fearing Khaled was dying right then while I was stuck half a world away from him, waves of anxiety coursed through my body like electricity. We would soon learn Khaled had terminal, stage 4 DSRCT, metastasized from his abdomen to lymph nodes and lungs…but he had time.
I was desperate to get to my husband and racked with guilt that I was not by his side. Fearing any chance that he might pass before I could get to him, I felt paralyzed but was unable to travel because the coronavirus pandemic had prompted Israel to close its borders. After two months of fighting and with the help of an Israeli lawyer and an influential activist friend from college, I was granted a humanitarian visa and given permission by the Israeli government to enter the country and travel to Khaled in Palestine.
Surgery is an essential component of treatment for DSRCT if one is to have any hope of survival, no one with DSRCT has survived to the 3-year mark without it. Khaled’s doctors told us from the beginning that his disease was beyond the point of surgery ever being an option, his body was just riddled with too many large tumors (9) that were too widespread, further cementing his diagnosis as terminal.
Fast forward to present day:
We have just received the miraculous news that Khaled is down to ONLY TWO tumors in his abdomen, all the others throughout his body have disappeared with treatment, and his doctors will be referring him to a surgeon at the best hospital in Israel for HIPEC surgery!
We are now 8 months and 9 chemotherapy cycles past that devastating night which turned our lives upside down and we have been through a lot. I have been living with Khaled and his family for 6 months, every 3 weeks we travel to Ramallah and stay for 3 days of grueling chemotherapy, Khaled caught and survived corona despite the cancer in his lungs, and every day is a struggle to adjust to the entirely abnormal, new-normal of our lives.
Living in the Occupied West Bank, money is a constant strain. Khaled is one of 5 siblings and his father earns about $900 a month. My visa does not allow me to work and I have almost depleted my savings with the costly trips and transportation to the Hospital in Ramallah, making sure Khaled has fresh and healthy food from reliable but more costly sources and assisting with the family's expenses.
Khaled’s father does not permit his mother to work and she is often not given enough money to buy the food necessary to feed the family basics, let alone what Khaled needs during his treatment. Much to my horror and despite my pleading with him not to, when I informed Khaled last month that my savings were about to run out, he felt forced to return to work.
Khaled is still receiving his extremely intense chemotherapy regimen every 3 weeks and after this past round had to return to work less than 48 hours after finishing the treatment. I truly don’t know how he does it. He wakes at 4:30 am to make the trip into Israel where he’s allowed to work on a work permit because there is no money to be made in the West Bank. He works in very physical and labor-intensive construction.
This is not sustainable.
I have reached the point where I do not know what else to do so I am asking for your help. My kind, caring and selfless husband will not hear reason and stop working, not for himself and his special, essential needs during treatment but for his family.
With Khaled’s intense HIPEC surgery on the horizon it is even more critical that he stop working now. He must go into this procedure with as much strength and health as he can. HIPEC (Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy) surgery averages 10-14 hours and involves not only removing as much of the cancerous tumors as possible but also delivering chemotherapy drugs heated up to 109F directly into the abdominal cavity. He will likely stay in the hospital for almost 2 weeks after the surgery followed by several months of exceedingly difficult recovery. Obviously working will be out of the question for a long time.
I am asking for financial assistance first and foremost so my husband can stop working immediately and not sabotage this surgery and his recovery. He has been given this chance that everyone told us would never be possible and he must enter it rested and strong. Looking forward, once my savings are gone and Khaled is recovering from his surgery we will be in even more need of help.
The money will be used for:
**the trips and transportation costs to the Hospital in Ramallah
**purchasing the necessary foods and supplements to keep Khaled on his particular diet that has thus far proved successful, though expensive
**the bottled water Khaled drinks because the tap water here is no longer safe for him with his immune system bottomed out due to chemotherapy
**purchasing a hot water heater so Khaled doesn’t have to boil water for “bucket showers,” especially now that winter is here
side note: to people who think winter doesn’t get cold in the Middle East, it definitely does and add to that no central heat, just a small indoor portable gas heater...yeah, we get cold
**regular food for myself, his mother and his four siblings (as Khaled will not stop working until he knows we are secure in this)
**occasionally assisting the family with other necessities like the power bill
When you are told two years into your marriage that this person who loves you so unconditionally is going to die your world turns upside down into such darkness and it feels as though that’s all it will ever be. For the first time since I picked up that 1am phone call I can feel my world lightening some, the burden has lessened, and I have been provided with some reprieve. I have learned to cling tight to the small bits of light and hope like this surgery or I will never be able to bear the despair that the darker times can bring.
At the time of Khaled’s diagnosis we were separated by an ocean and thousands and thousands of miles. I was in North Carolina with the coronavirus swiftly spreading and he was home in the Occupied West Bank, Palestine waiting as I tried to navigate the process of applying for his spousal visa to the U.S.
One night in mid-April, 2020 as NC was adjusting to the new reality of shelter in place, I received a call at 1am from the West Bank. Khaled had been rushed to the hospital unconscious, frail beyond recognition he had finally collapsed under the excruciating pain the spreading, undiagnosed cancer was causing his weak body—and just like that our lives, hopes, dreams and plans for the future were shattered.
Scans showed multiple tumors, they incorrectly suspected it was lymphoma, a biopsy was urgently needed to confirm but his parents didn’t have the funds to cover it. As quickly as I could figure out how, the money was wired to them for the procedure.
In the hours between that call with my in-laws and when I finally received solid information from Khaled’s English-speaking doctor, I was gripped by a terror unlike anything I had ever experienced. Fearing Khaled was dying right then while I was stuck half a world away from him, waves of anxiety coursed through my body like electricity. We would soon learn Khaled had terminal, stage 4 DSRCT, metastasized from his abdomen to lymph nodes and lungs…but he had time.
I was desperate to get to my husband and racked with guilt that I was not by his side. Fearing any chance that he might pass before I could get to him, I felt paralyzed but was unable to travel because the coronavirus pandemic had prompted Israel to close its borders. After two months of fighting and with the help of an Israeli lawyer and an influential activist friend from college, I was granted a humanitarian visa and given permission by the Israeli government to enter the country and travel to Khaled in Palestine.
Surgery is an essential component of treatment for DSRCT if one is to have any hope of survival, no one with DSRCT has survived to the 3-year mark without it. Khaled’s doctors told us from the beginning that his disease was beyond the point of surgery ever being an option, his body was just riddled with too many large tumors (9) that were too widespread, further cementing his diagnosis as terminal.
Fast forward to present day:
We have just received the miraculous news that Khaled is down to ONLY TWO tumors in his abdomen, all the others throughout his body have disappeared with treatment, and his doctors will be referring him to a surgeon at the best hospital in Israel for HIPEC surgery!
We are now 8 months and 9 chemotherapy cycles past that devastating night which turned our lives upside down and we have been through a lot. I have been living with Khaled and his family for 6 months, every 3 weeks we travel to Ramallah and stay for 3 days of grueling chemotherapy, Khaled caught and survived corona despite the cancer in his lungs, and every day is a struggle to adjust to the entirely abnormal, new-normal of our lives.
Living in the Occupied West Bank, money is a constant strain. Khaled is one of 5 siblings and his father earns about $900 a month. My visa does not allow me to work and I have almost depleted my savings with the costly trips and transportation to the Hospital in Ramallah, making sure Khaled has fresh and healthy food from reliable but more costly sources and assisting with the family's expenses.
Khaled’s father does not permit his mother to work and she is often not given enough money to buy the food necessary to feed the family basics, let alone what Khaled needs during his treatment. Much to my horror and despite my pleading with him not to, when I informed Khaled last month that my savings were about to run out, he felt forced to return to work.
Khaled is still receiving his extremely intense chemotherapy regimen every 3 weeks and after this past round had to return to work less than 48 hours after finishing the treatment. I truly don’t know how he does it. He wakes at 4:30 am to make the trip into Israel where he’s allowed to work on a work permit because there is no money to be made in the West Bank. He works in very physical and labor-intensive construction.
This is not sustainable.
I have reached the point where I do not know what else to do so I am asking for your help. My kind, caring and selfless husband will not hear reason and stop working, not for himself and his special, essential needs during treatment but for his family.
With Khaled’s intense HIPEC surgery on the horizon it is even more critical that he stop working now. He must go into this procedure with as much strength and health as he can. HIPEC (Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy) surgery averages 10-14 hours and involves not only removing as much of the cancerous tumors as possible but also delivering chemotherapy drugs heated up to 109F directly into the abdominal cavity. He will likely stay in the hospital for almost 2 weeks after the surgery followed by several months of exceedingly difficult recovery. Obviously working will be out of the question for a long time.
I am asking for financial assistance first and foremost so my husband can stop working immediately and not sabotage this surgery and his recovery. He has been given this chance that everyone told us would never be possible and he must enter it rested and strong. Looking forward, once my savings are gone and Khaled is recovering from his surgery we will be in even more need of help.
The money will be used for:
**the trips and transportation costs to the Hospital in Ramallah
**purchasing the necessary foods and supplements to keep Khaled on his particular diet that has thus far proved successful, though expensive
**the bottled water Khaled drinks because the tap water here is no longer safe for him with his immune system bottomed out due to chemotherapy
**purchasing a hot water heater so Khaled doesn’t have to boil water for “bucket showers,” especially now that winter is here
side note: to people who think winter doesn’t get cold in the Middle East, it definitely does and add to that no central heat, just a small indoor portable gas heater...yeah, we get cold
**regular food for myself, his mother and his four siblings (as Khaled will not stop working until he knows we are secure in this)
**occasionally assisting the family with other necessities like the power bill
When you are told two years into your marriage that this person who loves you so unconditionally is going to die your world turns upside down into such darkness and it feels as though that’s all it will ever be. For the first time since I picked up that 1am phone call I can feel my world lightening some, the burden has lessened, and I have been provided with some reprieve. I have learned to cling tight to the small bits of light and hope like this surgery or I will never be able to bear the despair that the darker times can bring.
Organizer
Alexa Hassouna
Organizer
Chapel Hill, NC
