WATCH: Lieben (5) battles ‘Goliath’ on road to recovery
At age five, Lieben van Zijl has had at least seven lifesaving operations after being diagnosed with rare cancer early this year.
Chemotherapy and radiation is Lieben van Zijl’s way of making sure that ‘Goliath’ gets the message to stay away.
For Lieben’s parents Jaco and Leandri, the rare cancer changed their lives forever. Earlier this year on April 19, the five-year-old’s uneven journey began.
After numerous tests and having endured a bumpy experience, he was diagnosed with intracranial immature teratoma. This is a rare condition that contains one or more of the three layers of cells found in a developing baby (embryo).
Though Lieben was an active and happy child, the cancer dubbed ‘Goliath’ took his joy away. It was until recently that the courageous youngster found back his smile after a visit from local karateka, sensei Henry Berry and sensei Goran Stankovic, who honoured him for his bravery and presented him with a white belt and warrior medal.
Lieben, who is deeply passionate about karate, is determined to kick his way to recovery.
“We presented him with a white belt with his name on it, a certificate, a warrior medal, a few trophies and other medals. This is because he is a little fighter and warrior against this cancer and because he went through so many surgeries. To us, he is a warrior fighting to survive,” said Berry, affiliated with the World Funakoshi Shotokan Karate Association and South African Shotokan Karate Academy.
Tough journey
Leandri said they first discovered his illness after a short-term illness.
“He had to undergo an emergency operation to drain fluids from his brain after discovering the severity of his condition. It was then discovered that he had a tumour. But they wouldn’t be able to get to that part of the brain, and they didn’t know what to do because it was too risky,” she explained.
She said the tumour was blocking normal fluids from his body. They eventually decided to do the big operation.
“Dr Tommy Mbuyane went in shallow and managed to get a sample of the tumour and it collapsed. He was so happy but he said he hadn’t seen anything like it, we waited two weeks to get the biopsy results. After receiving results, we could see something was not right and they did another scan and then they saw the tumour grew three times in its size in two weeks,” she said.
“That is when we decided to either leave the tumour and watch our son die slowly or take the risk of getting the whole tumour out. We risked losing him on the table or being permanently paralysed, it was the hardest decision of our lives. We kept praying and putting our faith in Mbuyane,” Leandri explained.
The doctor managed to get the whole tumour out and little Lieben woke up.
“He has slight brain damage and he spent 55 days in hospital. He went home for about two weeks before starting with strong chemo. He endured three biopsies and seven operations. We got through it, I don’t know how but we did,” she said.
Fighting ‘Goliath’
Lieben is best described as an inspiration and a fighter, one who will not go down without a fight.
According to Leandri, Lieben used to be very active and outgoing before his diagnosis.
“After the karate group visited the hospital earlier in the months to ‘kick cancer’, he just climbed out of his shell suddenly. He started laughing again after all of this and after making a video of him, people said he deserves a karate belt,” she said.
