Our story changed forever after the surgery that removed a tumour from Wiktor’s liver, because what we believed was a difficult battle suddenly revealed itself as a full-scale war for our child’s life. That was the moment when the word cancer stopped being a medical term and became a living presence, one that promised cure in theory but offered none in our reality.
Before that turning point, there had already been mistakes, delays, and diagnoses that missed the truth while the disease showed no patience. We waited as if time were unlimited, as if cancer might pause out of courtesy, and that waiting left wounds no parent should ever have to carry.
What followed were experiences so brutal that even imagining them feels impossible, because it is like descending into hell only to discover that the ladder back has been taken away. Despair, pain, and powerlessness became our daily language, spoken fluently without ever being learned.
We found ourselves trapped in a world that felt cruel and transactional, where the value of life seemed weighed against access, timing, and possibility. Even when the life at stake belonged to an innocent child, mercy was never guaranteed.
The months that followed revealed the true nature of what we were facing, something extraordinarily aggressive and unheard of in a child so young. There were no precedents, no clear paths, and for the doctors every step became an experiment guided by knowledge and experience that could not always reach us where we lived.
After surgeries that left no room to breathe or recover, the disease returned without warning, as if nothing had been done at all. Our hearts broke in a way that words cannot fully contain, because we finally understood that what had worked for others would not save Wiktor.
We were forced to accept that some options were no longer possible for him, even as others appeared fragile and uncertain. Still, belief became our only refuge, because imagining a world without our son was unbearable.
The cancer did not wait or negotiate, and its speed terrified us more than its name. Each delay felt like a threat, each unanswered question like a countdown we could hear but not stop.
When the disease returned and attacked Wiktor’s lungs, it did so without explanation or mercy. Hearing that news shattered us completely, leaving us stunned by how quickly hope could fracture.
Wiktor’s childhood had already been taken by hospital walls, surgeries, pain, fear, and longing for a normal life he barely remembered. Yet somehow, he stood up again and fought, even when his small body had every reason to surrender.
By then, we were already past two lung surgeries, holding onto gratitude simply because survival was still possible. Then, just two weeks later, rising tumour markers forced us to confront fear all over again, and I remember collapsing into a chair, unable to believe what I was hearing.
At that moment, certainty vanished, and all we knew was that action had to be immediate. Treatment began again, combining immunotherapy with a biological drug, each document signed reminding us of risks we were too exhausted to fear.
As the diagnosis shifted toward a different subtype of liver cancer, a painful truth emerged that this had likely been the reality from the beginning. Anger and grief mixed together as we wondered how much might have changed with earlier understanding, even as we tried to focus on what still lay ahead.
Months passed inside hospitals, marked by operations, chemotherapy cycles, and fragile recoveries. By December 2022, after an endless stretch of endurance, we finally reached a moment where a new chapter could begin.
Boston Children’s Hospital became the only place willing to fight for Wiktor’s life when others had no answers left. That hospital represented not certainty, but possibility, and in our world possibility was everything.
Our journey, however, had begun long before that, back in October 2021 on a day meant to celebrate new life. Instead of pure joy, we learned that Wiktor had an eight-centimetre tumour in his abdomen, and nothing has ever felt the same since.
He was diagnosed with hepatoblastoma, a malignant liver cancer, before he was even two and a half years old. From that moment on, the hospital became our home and chemotherapy became the rhythm of our days.
Those months of treatment brought more fear than relief, because the tumour resisted chemotherapy in ways that left doctors adjusting plans again and again. Sometimes it shrank, sometimes it grew, and certainty remained out of reach.
Eventually, the decision was made to operate, and Wiktor lost his entire right liver lobe and part of the left. That surgery felt like a miracle, and for a brief time hope returned with a force that almost felt dangerous.
Postoperative chemotherapy was planned carefully, but before the second cycle could begin, tumour markers rose dramatically. The relapse was sudden and devastating, with multiple tumours forming in the remaining liver and metastases appearing in the lungs.
There were no words for that moment, because no parent should ever face such news. Surgery was no longer an option, transplantation was denied, and chemotherapy offered no control over the disease.
In July 2022, we transferred Wiktor to another treatment centre, searching desperately for a lifeline. Consultations stretched across countries and continents until Boston emerged as the only place still offering a path forward.
When a safe liver transplant became possible in September 2022, we were not ready in time. The disease progressed again, yet doctors in Warsaw managed to save Wiktor’s life when he stood at the edge between survival and loss.
We were told that without a transplant his chances were zero, and with one they might reach thirty percent. Wiktor defied those numbers, surviving the transplant and reminding us that statistics are not destiny.
That victory did not last as long as we hoped, because new changes appeared in his lungs. Despite every therapy available where we were, options disappeared until only comfort care was discussed.
Then, against all expectations, we finally made it to Boston. Doctors there created a detailed plan involving targeted chemotherapy and surgeries on both lungs, aiming not just for time, but for recovery.
Even then, the disease proved unpredictable, forcing changes and adaptations that reshaped everything we thought we understood. Each shift carried fear, because uncertainty had already taught us how fragile progress could be.
Wiktor has endured thirty-five cycles of chemotherapy, seven surgeries, countless biopsies, and more general anaesthetics than most adults will face in a lifetime. Between treatments, we fought infections, transplant complications, and the constant threat of rejection.
Half of Wiktor’s life has been spent in hospitals, growing up far from home and away from his younger brother. He barely remembers a world without medical equipment, and his daily reality has been shaped by pain and resilience.
Somehow, he still finds the strength to smile, and we do not know where that strength comes from. What we do know is that his fight has taught us what love looks like when it refuses to surrender.
There is now a real chance ahead, fragile but genuine, and it is enough to keep us standing. We continue this fight not because we are brave, but because the life of our child leaves us no other choice.