December 8, 2023, is a date our family will never forget.
It is the day our lives split into a “before” and an “after.” That morning, our son Kuba left for school like a perfectly healthy twelve-year-old boy—walking on his own, carrying his backpack, thinking about classes, friends, and training later that day. By evening, he was lying in a pediatric oncology ward, a place that felt less like a hospital and more like a living nightmare.
The first sign came quietly.
A phone call from school asking us to pick Kuba up because he wasn’t feeling well. At that moment, nothing about it felt alarming. Children get tired. They catch viruses. We took him straight to the doctor, expecting reassurance and maybe some medication. The initial suspicion was exactly that—a viral infection. After all, just yesterday Kuba had been training, laughing, living his normal life. That morning, he had walked to school without a complaint.
Then the test results came.
They were merciless. Cold. Final. We were rushed to the hospital almost immediately. The oncologist’s words—“Your son has leukemia”—fell into the room like a heavy silence. Our hearts stopped. Our throats tightened. The world around us seemed to dim, as if all sound and light had been drained away in a single sentence.
We wanted to scream.
We wanted to cry, to fall apart, to refuse to believe what we were hearing. But we couldn’t. There was no time for despair. It was suddenly a race against time, and our son needed us to be strong. The first doses of chemotherapy began flowing into Kuba’s small body. He was only twelve years old, facing something no child should ever have to face.
From that moment on, our family was divided—physically and emotionally.
Kuba stayed in the hospital with his father, who had to quit his job to remain by his side day and night. At home were his mother and his younger brother, Adaś, trying to hold on to some sense of normalcy while living with constant fear. Our days became measured in blood tests, medication schedules, and waiting rooms. Our nights were filled with anxiety, whispered prayers, and the quiet beeping of hospital machines.
With every cycle of chemotherapy, Kuba grew weaker.
The side effects multiplied—nausea, exhaustion, pain. We watched his strength fade day by day. We watched clumps of hair fall out, each strand a painful reminder of what this disease was stealing from him. And yet, even in his weakest moments, Kuba tried to be brave. He tried to smile for us. He tried to reassure us, even when he was the one suffering.
Kuba has now completed four cycles of chemotherapy.
He is waiting to begin maintenance treatment, and with it, another critical step: a bone marrow transplant. But there is no compatible donor. At first, we placed all our hope in Adaś, Kuba’s younger brother. He was a match. We believed, for a brief moment, that a miracle had arrived.
That hope was taken from us too.
At the final stage of screening, doctors discovered that Adaś, like his older brother, has diabetes. He cannot become a donor. In a single blow, we were faced with another diagnosis for one child—and the loss of a life-saving chance for the other. Once again, we are waiting. Waiting for a miracle. Waiting for a stranger somewhere in the world to become Kuba’s bone marrow donor.
The financial burden is overwhelming.
Treatment costs, constant travel to the hospital, and the long rehabilitation process after a transplant are far beyond what we can manage alone. Both of us need to be present for our children—there is no other choice. Careers, plans, and comforts no longer matter.
All that matters is Kuba.
All we want is to see our son healthy again. Every night, before sleep finally comes, we dream of the same moment—the day this nightmare ends. The day Kuba comes home. The day he sits at the table with us and his little brother, laughing without pain, without fear.
Please help us make that dream come true.
