“Mommy, if I beat cancer once, why did it come back?”

My name is Yael Rubin, and I’m the mother of Chaim, a sweet 7-year-old boy.

I keep writing this and deleting it.

Then writing it again and deleting it again.

I’m so ashamed that I’ve reached the point where I have to ask people I don’t know for help.

I wish I never had to write these words at all.🫩

But then I look at Chaim, and I know I don’t have the right to stay silent just because asking for help is hard for me.

Chaim was not even five years old when our lives changed for the first time.

He was diagnosed with medulloblastoma, an aggressive malignant brain tumor.

For more than a year, our lives revolved around chemotherapy, radiation, tests, hospital stays, and treatment rooms.

Chaim was so little, but he quickly learned things no child his age should ever have to know.

What a needle feels like.

What it means to wait for test results.

What it’s like to fall asleep in a hospital.

And how to search your mother’s eyes for an answer she doesn’t have.

Then finally came the day we had been waiting and praying for.

They told us the treatments were over.

Chaim had beaten cancer.💔

He went back to school. Back to his friends. Back to laughing.

Little by little, he became simply Chaim again.

Just a year ago, I told him:

“That’s it, Chaim. It’s behind us now.”

Then, at the beginning of the month of Av, his body started shaking again.

The seizures came back.

We rushed him to the hospital.

Within days, we received the news we had feared more than anything.

The cancer was back.😭😭

In that moment, it felt like everything we had rebuilt over the past year simply collapsed.

I looked at my little boy and couldn’t breathe.

Then came the questions.

“Mommy, if I beat cancer once, why did it come back?”

“Mommy, can kids die from this disease too?”

And then, quietly, he asked me:

“Mommy, does dying hurt?”

There is no answer a mother should ever have to give her seven-year-old child to a question like that.

But there is one thing I do know:

We are not giving up on Chaim.

Chaim has already started local treatment intended to control the disease and stabilize his condition.

But his doctors have explained that we now need to move quickly to the next stage.

In Memphis, Tennessee, there is an advanced medical center with specialists in pediatric brain tumors and access to advanced clinical treatment for complicated cases like Chaim’s.

His situation is especially delicate because he has already received radiation in the past, so any further treatment has to be extremely precise and carefully planned.

And our time is limited.

We need to get him to the United States in the coming weeks, around the period after the holidays.

But there is one obstacle we simply cannot overcome alone:

$480,000 !!

😱

That is the amount we need to raise for treatment, hospitalization, flights, transportation, housing, and the many medical expenses involved.

The hospital also requires a significant upfront deposit before they can open his medical file and move forward with treatment.

We have already used our savings.

My husband, Eliyahu, continues working hard with his hands so our family can keep going financially.

I left my part-time job so I could stay with Chaim every moment he needs me.

We are doing everything we possibly can.

But we cannot do this alone. I am writing to you as a mother.

Not as someone who knows how to run a fundraising campaign.

Not as someone who is used to asking for money.

Just as a mother holding her child’s hand and trying to give him another chance.

Please help us get Chaim to the treatment he needs.

Every donation brings him one step closer.

Every share can help this message reach the person who can make a difference.

And every day that passes is a day we can never get back.

I just want to see Chaim go back to his classroom.

Back to his friends. Back to his games.

And I want to hear him asking the kinds of questions a seven-year-old boy should be asking.

Not about cancer. Not about pain. And not about death. Just about life.

Yael & Eliyahu Rubin

Chaim’s parents 🙏🙏🙏

Chaim’s medical records and supporting documentation are held by the organization. To protect Chaim and his family’s medical privacy, these documents are not published publicly.