“Arianka’s Battle Against Leukemia – A Mother’s Cry for Life”.2203 (btl)

Eryka’s Story – A Mother’s Plea From the Oncology Ward

I am writing these words with trembling hands and a heart full of pain. For months now, our lives have been consumed by a nightmare from which I cannot wake. We live inside a hospital room on the oncology ward, where every hour feels like a battlefield and every day another war with suffering that words cannot truly describe.

In January, our fragile world collapsed once again. The doctors told us that new metastases had appeared. I can still hear the echo of those words in my mind, like a bell ringing at the end of hope. Everything changed in an instant. The hope I had been holding onto with all my strength began to crumble in my hands like dry leaves.

The doctors prescribed two more cycles of chemotherapy. It was supposed to be our chance — a path forward, however painful, to shrink the tumors and give Eryka another chance at life. We endured those weeks with a strange combination of fear and determination. Each hospital visit, each blood draw, each night of nausea and tears — all of it was for the hope of better news.

But in March, when the next tests came, our hearts sank. The results showed that while the tumors had shrunk slightly, they were still there. The disease had not disappeared. The enemy was still inside my little girl’s body. The doctors decided to start an even more aggressive treatment — chemoimmunotherapy. A word that sounds clinical and technical, but for us it meant one thing: even stronger medicine, even more pain, even deeper uncertainty.

This is hell on earth. There is no other way to describe it. My daughter, my little Eryka, is only a child, yet she endures pain so intense that even the strongest painkillers no longer bring relief. She moans in her sleep. Her small body stiffens, her face contorts, and she squeezes my hand with all the strength she has left, as if holding onto me can make the pain stop.

I spend nights sitting next to her hospital bed, watching the monitors beep and the IV drips empty into her veins. I watch her tiny chest rise and fall with effort. During treatment her oxygen saturation drops, her blood pressure sinks. Her lips turn pale. She is becoming a shadow of the girl she was only a few months ago.

I remember her laughter — bright, high-pitched, filling the house like sunshine. I remember her running barefoot across the grass, hair flying behind her, cheeks red with excitement. That girl feels like a dream now, distant and untouchable. Eryka no longer wants to eat. She no longer wants to drink. She rarely smiles. The hospital room has become her world, and pain her constant companion.

And me? I am here, beside her, helpless. I am her mother, and she clings to me as if I were her anchor in a storm. She will not let me go even for a moment. She holds my hand, she needs to feel my presence, she needs to know that I am here — always. But I am exhausted. I am alone here. There is no one to take over when I collapse, no one to hold her when I cannot. My body is tired, my spirit is tired, but I cannot stop. She is my child. I cannot fail her.

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, when the machines beep and her breath becomes shallow, I feel like I am standing on the edge of an abyss. I whisper prayers I didn’t even know I remembered. I beg for strength. I beg for one more day with her. One more chance to see her smile again without pain.

We are fighting with everything we have, but our resources — emotional, physical, and financial — are running out. The treatments are expensive, the travel to the hospital is constant, the medications are endless. And the pain — the pain is unimaginable. Eryka’s body is so small, so fragile, and yet she endures what would break an adult.

I am asking you, begging you, from the bottom of my heart: please help us. Please stand with us in this fight. Your support is the only hope we have left that this nightmare might one day end. Without you, we cannot continue. With you, maybe — just maybe — my daughter will have a chance at life beyond the hospital walls.

When I hold Eryka in my arms, even with tubes running from her chest and tape on her little hands, I see the same girl I brought into this world — full of light, full of promise. She deserves a future. She deserves a life without pain.

I know there are many stories like ours. I know there are many children fighting similar battles. But when it’s your child, it feels like the world has shrunk to a single point — her suffering, her face, her hand gripping yours. I cannot give up. I will not give up. But I cannot do this alone.

Please, help us continue Eryka’s treatment. Help us buy the medications, pay for the hospital stays, fund the next steps of therapy that might give her a chance to live. Please help me ease her suffering. Every contribution, every prayer, every word of support matters more than you can imagine.

Thank you, from the depths of my heart, to everyone who has been with us so far. Thank you to those who have sent kind messages, who have donated, who have prayed. Without you, we would have lost hope long ago. Because of you, we are still fighting. Because of you, Eryka still has a chance.

But the road ahead is long, and it is steep. Please walk it with us.

With love and desperation,
Erkeaiym Duulatbekova — Eryka’s mother