Dr. Sondos Eddeeb

Perhaps what I endured was meant to open my eyes to another hidden world of human suffering. I wouldn’t have found the strength to keep going if not for the pain of those I left behind, still struggling.

I am Dr. Sondos Eddeeb, Director of the Hayat Cancer Patient Support Organization.

I grew up in a small family with just my brother and me. As the youngest, I was always by my father’s side. I wasn’t like other daughters, and my father wasn’t like other fathers; we were true friends. I walked through life confident, knowing there was a mountain behind me to lean on.

In 2018, fate struck through routine tests my father did every year. My blood ran cold when I read the results. My father received the news with calm strength, but I was desperate to hold on to any chance. That’s when our journey changed. I went from trailing my father as a spoiled daughter to walking beside him as a doctor, fully aware that orphanhood was just around the corner. Within months, he passed away. I thought I would follow him soon after and my spirit was shattered. But the cries of patients and families in hospital hallways never left me, some waiting for death, others lacking enough to complete treatment. Few people truly grasp the massive sums a cancer patient needs.

That’s how Hayat was born, to be my way back to life. As soon as we opened in 2020, the cases flooded. What pains me most is having to choose who gets help based on their chance of recovery. Every time I make these choices, I ask myself, Would I have turned my father away? Soon after, my mother too was diagnosed. But by God’s mercy, she was cured after another journey through pain.

Despite all the pain, what keeps us strong at Hayat is that we now stand with 500 patients, with over 300 recovered and hundreds still waiting, battling disease and poverty, needing every bit of help from kind hearts.

I wish every person had insurance that guaranteed treatment for them and their families. Cancer is called malignant for a reason, and care, financial help, and psychological support must be a basic right for every patient and their loved ones.