The battle against neuroblastoma, the rare and deadly child-killing cancer
By MAAYAN JAFFE-HOFFMAN
The Jerusalem Post
January 28, 2023
Shir Dado Baralia was a healthy, beautiful baby boy who made his family so happy. When he was one year old, his parents and two older siblings went about their daily lives. Little did they know that before the age of three, Shir would be dead from cancer.
“This is something no child, no parent and no family should ever have to go through,” says Einat Dado Baralia, Shir’s mother. “I want to change the fate of kids with cancer.”
Shir (whose name means “song” in Hebrew) was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a rare kind of cancer that mostly strikes toddlers under the age of five. Around 50% of children who suffer from the disease die.
“For Shir, we had tried every available option, and they just were not good enough,” says Baralia, who now runs the nonprofit neuroblastoma advocacy organization Shir for Life. “These are kids who have not even started their lives. I literally cannot sleep at night when I think about it.”
The story began in December 2020. “Shirkush,” as her son was affectionately called, started to have constant diarrhea. As the mother of three, this didn’t phase Baralia at first. But she did want to get some answers. So she started running between doctors to understand why the diarrhea would not stop.
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