Baby Batya’s cancer recovery confirms faith in Hashem

Batya Rivkah Musiker’s parents, Sean and Justine, realised their worst nightmare after her birth on 26 April 2024, when she was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare form of cancer, and had to undergo many surgeries and chemotherapy. Seven months later, however, baby Batya has had her last round of chemo and has a new lease on life.

After 13 rounds of chemo and more than 600 hours spent in the hospital, Batya finished her treatment, and her big brother rang the victory bell for her at the Donald Gordon Paediatric Cancer Ward on 4 December.

“It was extremely emotional to see that the doctor that initially diagnosed it came for this moment, and everyone had tears in their eyes,” said Batya’s father, Sean. “Just to see all the people who had helped us along the way was a special, emotional moment.”

“Our little girl has gone through more in her seven months of life than most people do in a lifetime,” he said. “If you looked at her, besides the fact that she has a scar on her bum, which not everyone would see, and she’s bald, she looks like a normal baby.”

Saul, Batya’s older brother, ringing the bell on her behalf signified that this was a family journey that had come to a happy conclusion, said Batya’s parents.

Batya was born on the third day of Pesach, and was named after the biblical Batya who saved Moses from the River Nile and raised him as her own. “To be born on that day was auspicious. It was fantastic. And then, we went from naming her to putting her onto a list for mi shebeirach [prayer for healing] to be said at shul on Saturdays after the Torah reading, which was a knife to the gut.”

In the delivery room when Batya was born, the doctors picked up a bump on her left thigh/buttock. After testing, she was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma, a rare and aggressive form of paediatric cancer which attacks the muscle.

Sean and Justine were horrified on hearing her diagnosis on 10 May. “I had been trying to stay positive and say, ‘No, it’s nothing, we’ll deal with it,’” Sean said, “‘It’s a benign growth, or whatever.’ I was trying to think positive. So, when we got hit by that news, it was an absolute hammer blow.

“I can’t even describe the emotions that were running through me at that moment,” he said. “I felt like I’d been hit from nowhere. And obviously, lots of tears were shed, tears of sorrow, pain, and anguish.”

For the next seven months, both parents were determined to get Batya better.

She has since undergone numerous surgeries to get her to this point. She was just three weeks old when she had her first surgery to insert a port for chemo and begin her seven-month chemo journey. “She went through about four operations in a row every single Tuesday. We really went through the wringer,” said Sean.

“The doctors obviously couldn’t tell us at the time which way it was going to go, but thank G-d, it turned out the way that it did,” he said.

The doctors couldn’t remove the tumour when she was born because it was too big, Sean said. The tumour was on the left side of her bum, just below her lower back.

“It was probably three centimetres in length, breadth, and height. In a newborn baby, that’s almost 10% of her body size. So, they needed to let the chemo take effect. As she grew, we thought the chemo was making the tumour disappear, but it was her growing and her bum getting bigger and enveloping the tumour. When it was removed and tested, it wasn’t much smaller than it had been, but it was dead, so the chemo had killed the tumour.”

Since the tumour was in her muscle, the surgeons had to take the tumour out piece by piece – amounting to 40 pieces in total.

Despite the chemo and surgeries, Batya kept growing as babies do. “All the way through, she just kept growing and hitting all of her milestones,” said Sean.

Sean was cautiously optimistic when the doctor said that they had managed to remove the whole tumour, but there was always a nagging sense of dread. Said Sean, “And then when they tested it, I think we kind of breathed a sigh of relief. The entire thing that they tested was dead. And that was a massive, massive relief. But we still had to finish the course of chemo, and thankfully, we were able to ring that bell.

“Although it has been so hard, there are people who have come into our lives who will be part of our lives and friends forever. The best part is that she’s healed. She’s done it so well. She’s inspired so many people.”

Plenty of tehillim groups were set up in Batya’s name, and people even sent letters to the Lubavitcher Rebbe. A few cyclists rode the 947 Ride Joburg on Batya’s behalf to raise funds for non-profit cancer-support organisation DL Link.

A lot of good has come out of an extremely challenging situation, the Musikers said. “It’s the medicine, combined with the best medical team in the world, combined with prayers to heal her, and keeping Shabbos and laying tefillin and all of those things that we did on her behalf that helped get her to the place we are today.”

If there’s one message Sean and Justine would like to give the community, it’s that no matter how challenging a situation is, having faith and trust in Hashem goes a long, long way.