Children with Cancer: We Care!

Hi!!

Shirley here!!

So on the 22ndof June 2013, the Green Team Indonesia visited a place for children who suffer from cancer disease. There were children with leukemia (blood cancer), eye cancer, cervical cancer and other types of cancer. They come from poor families and have no money to buy medicines and do treatments. This foundation of Yayasan Kasih Anak Kanker Bali (YKAKB) helps them to do treatments and they prepare theire medicine. It is kind of a transit home (‘rumah singgah’ in Indonesian language) for children who are having treatments for cancer. It is near Sanglah hospital in Denpasar (Bali) so that they can do the treatment in the hospital easily.

From left to right: Mr. Wahyu, Laily (11 years old with blood cancer) and Cikal (5 years old with eye cancer)

When we arrived there, we went to their office first. When we were in the office, we were given some information and education about cancer like what is cancer, how to prevent it and how to be cautious against cancer. Mr. Wahyu, the head of the foundation told us that when we take a shower, we should check ourselves by rubbing our body. If we find a lump anywhere in our body, we should go to the doctor immediately because it might be a tumor or a cancer. We should go to the doctor even if the lump is really small. The different between the lump caused by a cancer with a tumor is that the lump caused by a cancer is hard and the tumor is soft when you touch it.

Mr. Wahyu also told us that people with cancer have a low immunity system and that they can get really sick because of flu or cough. So when we visited them, we were told to wear masks if we had a cold or other sickness.

Mr. Wahyu explained to us that everybody has a cancer cell inside our body. But if there is no trigger, the cell will remain silent forever. So, there are some things to avoid in preventing the cancer to ‘wake up’:

• Do not eat junk food oftentimes, because it might cause us to have cancer in the future. 
• Do not eat instant or canned food oftentimes. 
• Increase our consumption of fruit and vegetables. 
• Take enough sleep and rest. 
• Control our emotion, like: anger, hatred, stress etc. 
• Enough exercise. 

When he finished talking about do’s and don’ts, he said we can visit the kids but we had to wear special sandals and we needed to wash our hands. Cancer is not a contagious disease. We should not be scared of them. We were surprised because the place was so clean and well organized. There were a storage room for food, bedrooms and kitchen. There were 2 bathrooms in each room. There were 4 beds in each room. The kids slept with their mom or dad. So a kid whose age is under 5 years old is allowed to have both parents to accompany them, while kids whose age is more than 5 years old are only allowed to have one parent accompanying them. The parents slept with their kids. The parents were the ones who cleaned the house and they share tasks. 

We taught them to make crafts: pencil case from ice cream sticks. 

After the tour we went to play with the kids and we taught them how to make pencil cases from ice cream sticks. We were all at joy visiting them. They were all so cute. They looked so happy, we wanted them to feel at least for 2 hours that they’re not sick and normal just like us. They were all laughing. They didn’t seem sad or pale, they were happy. We were told that we could make some notes for them and I was the one who drew and wrote a note that they should follow their dreams. Mr. Wahyu said that the kids would read them when we go home.

This is the drawing made by me (Shirley) for children with cancer in 'rumah singgah'

It was an unforgettable moment for me and the Green Team Indonesia.

Keep helping others!

The Green Team Indonesia really thanks to Mr. Wahyu and Mrs. Rahayu for welcoming us and providing a very useful information. Thank you for inspiring us!

Thank you for reading, friends around the world.



Best Regards,
Shirley