Doctor anesthesiologist Szymon Bernas and his wife, Anna, a nurse, had a placid and comfortable life with their two children, Bartek (12) and Barbara (4), in Lodz (Poland), 120 km to the south -east of Warsaw. It seemed like a solid project until one day a fracture was declared that threatened to collapse everything. In October 2021, Szymon detected two lumps – “Quite large”, he says – in the girl’s abdomen, after several days of abdominal pain and lack of appetite. The tests, carried out with all urgency, revealed the existence of a neuroblastoma, a type of cancer that originates in nerve cells, usually before the age of five. To the initial blow received by the family, evidence was gradually added, like stab wounds, that the country’s system lacked the resources to treat Barbara adequately.
In a situation of fear and stress, you had to react. “I made the decision one day when I was watching my daughter, who was physically unwell, very weakened by the treatment. I said to my husband: ‘Szymon, our daughter wants to live, we have to help her'”. In conversation with La Vanguardia via video conference, Anna Jurga gets emotional. He can’t help but cry when he remembers that difficult moment. “If we had stayed in Poland, Barbara would not have survived the treatment,” he says. Specialists had decided to apply strong chemotherapy to the patient, with a high risk of sequelae, after determining that she was inoperable. In another Polish city, Wroclaw, they did bet on surgery, but gave up after doing a biopsy. In this period, the girl suffered two infections. “We were affected, lost, we didn’t know what to do”, recalls Anna.
A surgeon and an oncologist from Lodz recommended that they try their luck at the Comprehensive Cancer Center in Tübingen (southern Germany). At the same time, a Polish association of relatives and patients with neuroblastoma pointed out the name of Sant Joan de Déu. Interestingly, years ago Szymon Bernas did a short internship at this hospital in Barcelona. They decided on the latter. Because? “For various reasons; the first, that the date of the (telematic) interview was very fast and in this disease time is key”, says the parent. Another, that “Dr. Mora (Jaume, scientific director of the SJD Pediatric Cancer Center) told us that chemotherapy was enough and that we could operate. ‘Barbara is our patient’, he told me. It is very important for a doctor to say these words because it means that he takes responsibility for the patient’s health and life.”
Bartek stayed in Lodz, looked after by neighbors and distant relatives – the boy has no grandparents. On January 23, 2022, the rest of the family traveled to Barcelona with baggage full of uncertainty and fear that began to ease with the first visit with Dr. Mora, explains Anna: “He didn’t stop watch the girl Then he accompanied us to the door paying attention to the way he walked. Although the girl was in complicated conditions, even without tests, just by observation, Dr. Mora told us that he did not think she had metastases. And it was true!”
After the surgery, shortly after a month, on February 26, the family returned to Poland. Now they check him every six months. At the end of the conversation, Barbara bursts into the video conference, rambunctious and shy. “He is very well, he has grown a lot; she is a very active girl, she plays a lot with her brother. Today she had a fight with another girl from the nursery school”, says the mother.
