Tragic dad’s gift to son
DAD, 30, WROTE TWO CHILDREN’S BOOKS FOR SON WHILE BATTLING CANCER
A DOCTOR who died from a rare brain tumour wrote two children’s books for his three-year-old son as a final heartbreaking gift.
Paediatrician Aria Nikjooy, from Manchester, was just 27 when he was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour in November 2018.
Despite having the tumour removed, the cancer returned several times before spreading to his spine. He died last month aged just 30. While undergoing chemotherapy in 2019, he wrote a book called Eddie and the Magic Healing Stone to explain illness in parents to his toddler son, Eliyas, now three.
The book was published last September and Aria was able to read it aloud to Eliyas – a bittersweet moment for him and his GP registrar wife Naomi, 33. He has another children’s book due to be released soon, called Eddie and the Last Dodo on Earth, about the importance of family.
Naomi said: “I am so proud of Aria. Lots of people dream of writing books and always talk about it but never get round to it. He was in the worst state he could possibly be in, but he was still motivated to write books for our son.
“When I read his second children’s book, I cried – it was so beautiful. It will be emotional reading it to Eliyas without Aria here, but I’ll be doing it for him.”
Having met in 2012 at the University of Birmingham, where they studied medicine, the couple married in 2016.
They moved to Manchester in 2017, just before Eliyas was born.
Aria was working night shifts as a paediatric doctor on the neonatal ward at St Mary’s Hospital when he started suffering terrible headaches. He put them down to the pressures of his job.
But at the beginning of November that year, his headaches became so severe he had to go home during a shift.
The next day he went for a scan and the couple were told there was a ‘suspicious mass’ on Aria’s brain.
Naomi said: “No amount of medical training could prepare either of us for that news. It was just pure shock.”
Aria had the large tumour removed on November 9 – the day before his birthday – in a seven-hour operation at the Salford Royal Hospital.
He had to relearn how to walk, talk, eat and write, so after being discharged from hospital in early 2019, he decided to pen a children’s book for Eliyas to recover his writing skills.
Naomi said: “We were in the waiting room for one of his appointments when Aria told me he had started to write a book for Eliyas, and that he wanted to read it to him to explain about parents getting poorly. Aria knew that one day we would have to explain cancer to Eliyas and this would make it a lot easier. I knew Eliyas would love it. Aria had such a wild imagination – he’d describe it as a very childish mind. I guess that’s why he did paediatrics, because he could relate to children.”
In November 2019, a year after his diagnosis, Aria was finally able to return to work, on the paediatric rheumatology ward at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital. But in March last year his cancer returned – days before the first lockdown began.
He had a second operation but the cancer returned again and he was booked in for further surgery on July 31, just five days after Eliyas’s third birthday. After approaching ‘thousands of publishers,’ Aria’s determination was rewarded when The Endless Bookcase agreed to publish Eddie and the Magic Healing Stone, which came out in September.
Naomi said: “It was very emotional, watching him reading the book to our son. Eliyas absolutely loved it, and although he wasn’t saying many words at that point he loved roaring along when the characters roared.”
In early December, the family received the devastating news that the cancer had spread through Aria’s spine. His health deteriorated quickly and he died on February 8 at home.
Naomi has been keeping busy organising the publication of Aria’s memoir Broken Brain: Brutally Honest, Brutally Me, aimed at adults, which she hopes will give strength to others affected by cancer and could be used as a manual for doctors to help them understand what it is like to be an NHS patient.
Proceeds from Aria’s children’s books will be going to four organisations that supported him and his family – Brain Tumour Research, the Royal Medical Foundation, the Royal Medical Benevolent Fund and the Society For Assistance Of Medical Families.