When Nancy, 37, was playfully struck in the abdomen by her son, no one imagined that an affectionate gesture would uncover such a harsh truth.
“I felt an unbearable pain,” she recalls, her voice still trembling.
Her husband rushed her to the hospital.
An MRI showed a suspicious pelvic mass, and doctors called in a surgeon and a gynaecologist to decide the next steps.
That visit became the beginning of a fight for her life.
Subsequent investigations brought a heavy but clear diagnosis: metastatic malignant neoplasm with multifocal involvement of the colon, liver, uterus and ovaries.
A colonoscopy revealed more than 15 centimetres of polyps, and a liver biopsy confirmed a 3.7 cm lesion compatible with metastasis.
“The doctors say this cancer has been here for four to five years. I never felt anything,” Nancy sighs.
As the mother of two young children – a six-year-old son and an eight‑year‑old daughter – and the primary caregiver for two elderly aunts in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, Nancy said she was in utter shock at the discovery of a disease so advanced.
Her husband, the family breadwinner, earns only $165 per month as a school bus driver.
In Syria, where living costs are crushing, a family of four needs on average around $400 per month just to survive.
She could not have afforded care and continued to uphold her family alone.
In this fragile context, community intervention proved crucial.
Providential intervention
Nancy’s life changed when her local Syriac Orthodox church stepped in to meet her immediate needs, not only spiritual but financial support for the medical care she would need to survive.
Essential to that response was the church’s medical project, funded by Christian Solidarity International (CSI).
Nancy’s therapeutic course began on 9 March with an extensive surgical procedure: a hysterectomy, as well as the removal of both ovaries and a large segment of her colon.
Following these surgeries, her doctors recommended chemotherapy to control any residual disease and reduce the risk of systemic progression and further metastases.
“We thank God for everything,” Nancy repeats throughout her account. “Without the church’s help and the project donors, we wouldn’t have known where to find the money for the surgery and chemotherapy.”
More than $2,000 for extensive operations and the initial chemotherapy doses was covered – a sum that, in a severe economic crisis, meant access to care itself.
Her diagnostic tests, medicines and medical visits were also covered.
“Every time they gave me money, I said that if someone is more in need than me, they should give it to them. But they told me that this providence is for me now,” she says, eyes filling with tears.
This intervention of generosity restored a sense of dignity in Nancy.
She is no longer alone facing her illness but supported by a visible community and international partners.
Dignity restored
Faith lies at the heart of Nancy’s story. She says she felt God’s presence from the moment she chose to go to hospital after the abdominal blow.
Before the illness, when she had left work to raise her children, she attended Mass and daily prayers almost every day.
“The Church and the Eucharist called to me greatly. Now I understand that God wanted me to leave work to draw closer to Him, so that when the trial came, I would not be weak.”
She has a spiritual companion who supports her in moments of discouragement, especially after infusions that rob her of energy and serenity, when her body feels drained and the question “why?” assails her soul.
“Then I speak with him and I begin again to thank God,” she says.
Nancy’s past is marked by earlier sufferings: a bullet lodged in her back during the war in Syria, a difficult first childbirth, and the traumas of the 2023 earthquake.
“It seems the sufferings never end,” she says, but “it is precisely God’s love and the closeness of others that give me the strength to stand.”
Nancy started chemotherapy on 20 April, and by 1 June she had already received four infusions.
Her plan calls for a subsequent hepatic resection followed by an additional four chemotherapy cycles.
The hope is that these treatments will lead to a durable remission.
Nancy does not hide her fears.
After chemotherapy infusions, her body feels “drained” and fatigue is profound; yet the fear of death that once tormented her is now softened by the inner peace her faith provides.
Were it not for the help of the church and donors, she confesses, the anguish would have been unbearable.
For Nancy, the greatest strength is her children.
“Their smile is enough for me; I must fight for them because they are still small,” she says.
Her voice, tired but steady, shows how illness tests her, yet has not broken her faith.
The support of her church, in partnership with CSI, is the backbone that allows a courageous mother to receive treatment, to care for her family, and to live in faith and hope.
