Just hours before New York Times contributing writer Wajahat Ali was set to give a TED Talk on why more people should be having children — he got devastating news about his own child. His 2-year-old daughter, Nusayaba, was diagnosed with stage 4 liver cancer. Ali was just hours from beginning his talk on the declining birth rate in the United States — and how important it is for people to start families, and for policies that make having a family possible to be put into place.
Doctors found Nusayaba’s cancer after a scan revealed abnormal bumps on the girl’s liver. Ali’s wife, who is a doctor, recognized the bumps as a sign of cancer. Liver cancer is quite rare in children, but there are two main types of liver cancer that are typically diagnosed in children — hepatoblastoma and hepatocellular carcinoma. Hepatoblastoma usually means that the cancer has not spread out of the liver. Hepatocellular carcinoma often spreads to other area of the body, and is typically diagnosed in older children (14 or older). Since little Nusayaba was diagnosed at stage 4, that means her cancer had spread to all four sections of her liver.
Read MoreAfter making his point about the declining birth rate and American families, Ali revealed to the audience what he had just learned about his daughter. “Deciding to have babies was the best decision we ever made,” Ali said after sharing the devastating news. “Our babies have brought us so much joy and they’ve brought the world so much joy, and having kids is a risk — but life is a risk.”
He closed out his speech by bringing it back to his original point — “Babies have always represented humanity’s best, boldest most infinite possibilities, and if we in developed countries, as a whole, opt out and don’t invest in future and present generations, then what the hell is the point?”
Nusayaba is currently undergoing chemotherapy for her disease. Ali stopped by CBS This Morning earlier this week to discuss his cause and give an update on her status. “She came home yesterday,” Ali said. “She did her fifth chemo.”
The way chemotherapy is administered to a child with liver cancer depends on the individual. But for this particular disease, chemoembolization may be used. Chemoembolization of the hepatic artery (the artery that supplies blood to the liver) is a type of regional therapy used to treat pediatric liver cancer that cannot be removed with surgery, according to the National Cancer Institute. The idea is to trap the cancer-killing drug in the region near the cancer, so that only a small amount reaches other parts of the body.
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