Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
Campaign launched in memory of Rayhan
Raising cash and awareness about brain tumours
An Airdrie family honoured the anniversary of the death of their four-year-old son last week with a period of prayer and reflection as they mark his tragic loss.
Sarfraz and Nadia Majid, both devout Muslims currently observing the month of Ramadan, were devastated when Rayhan died in 2018, just four months after being diagnosed with a brain tumour.
The Majids are working with the charity Brain Tumour Research to raise awareness and launched a fundraising group called Remembering Rayhan under the charity’s umbrella on the anniversary to help find a cure for this devastating disease.
As the Advertiser reported last year, Rayhan, a huge fan of sports and Transformers, started to get bad headaches and was being sick in October 2017.
Nadia, mum also to four-yearold Eliza and Zakaria, 13, said: “I just knew something wasn’t right.
“Over the course of six weeks, I took Rayhan to see four different GPS on six separate occasions, but they refused to listen to my concerns.
“When I protested and described the severe headaches
and vomiting symptoms I was seeing at home, the doctor suggested that maybe he needed glasses and to take him to the optician instead.”
Rayhan’s headaches and sickness were becoming continuous so his parents took him to the accident and emergency department at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in
Glasgow, where Rayhan had an MRI scan which revealed a 3x4cm mass in the cerebellum.
Rayhan underwent a craniotomy, but surgeons were unable to remove all the tumour because it was by now touching the brainstem.
Immediately after the surgery, Rayhan developed cerebellar mutism, a complication from surgery on this type of tumour in children, leaving him unable to speak, walk or eat.
Later he had a second surgery to have a shunt fitted to relieve a build-up of fluid in the brain known as hydrocephalus which had also developed due to the late diagnosis.
Just a few days later, Rayhan’s parents learnt that the tumour was an aggressive grade 3 medulloblastoma and that their young son would need six weeks of radiotherapy and four months of chemotherapy, both at the highest doses permissible for his age.
However, even before Rayhan could start treatment, another MRI scan revealed the devastating news that the cancer had spread. The original tumour had regrown, along with two new tumours in the brain, as well as a coating of cancer throughout the brain and spine known as leptomeningeal disease.
The brave little boy’s health continued to deteriorate rapidly and he sadly passed away at 4.22am on April 7, 2018, in the arms of his loving parents.
Nadia said: “We don’t feel angry that he died because we believe that was God’s will and we were gifted with four-and-a-half years of a beautiful life with our Rayhan.
“However, we’re angry about all the head-shaking and negligence from doctors and how long it took to get a diagnosis.”
Brain tumours kill more children and adults under the age of 40 than any other cancer, yet historically just one per cent of the national spend on cancer research has been allocated to this devastating disease.
Matthew Price, community development manager for Brain Tumour Research, said: “Our thoughts are with Rayhan’s family as they face another year without him. Losing a loved one at any age is terrible, but to lose a child when they should have a long life ahead of them must be agonising.
“We are grateful to Nadia and Sarfraz for setting up Remembering Rayhan to help make a difference for other families in the future.
“Rayhan’s story reminds us that just 12.5 per cent of those diagnosed with a brain tumour survive beyond five years, compared with an average of 50 per cent across all cancers.”
Text RAYHAN to 70085 to donate £5 to Brain Tumour Research. Texts cost £5 plus one standard rate message. Or you can donate at www.braintumourresearch. org/donation/donate-now and give your reason as Remembering Rayhan.
Turn to pages 14 and 15 for our feature on how Lanarkshire is observing Ramadan.