Sint-Truiden The five-year-old Kenric Enckels from Sint-Truiden fought three years against rhabdomyosarcoom, a rare cancer that muscle tissue are affected. It was an unequal battle, which he did in February lost. But the remembrance lives, and this also thanks to a wonderful mural that Sint-Truiden, belgium since Sunday graces.
Passers-by look surprised, cars slow down. The beautiful mural can count on considerable acclaim from the Truienaren. The well-known artist Tom Herck has a hand in the work, all he wants to that is not so, have said: “ I have cooperated on this project of Fighters against Cancer, because I also have huge respect for Kenric and his parents. Together with Ben Onckelinx and the Genk Cesa Graff, we have something beautiful trying to make. I hope that’s what grief can relieve.” Bert Vanmechelen of the organization ‘Fighters against Cancer’, which Kenric and his parents were from the outset friendly, is happy with the result: “The least we could do. Kenric and his parents deserve that. Respect, for the courageous struggle they have supplied. We have done what we could to support them, that they have not had the feeling only to have to fight”
Between heaven and hell
The fight began 3 years ago. “On January 25, 2016, and changed our lives forever. It was the day the diagnosis came. Kenric was only two and he breathed heavily in his sleep. A heavy cold, we thought together with the doctor. But it’s getting worse,” says papa Serge Enckels . “So we went to the nose-, throat – and oorarts, who immediately noticed that something was wrong. A scan of the university hospital of Leuven was grim: Kenric suffered rhabdomyosarcoom, or cancer of the muscles and the soft tissue, a tumor that the muscle tissue are affected. He comes in, almost half of the cases in head and neck and mainly affects children and adolescents. Rhabdo is rare, very rare: only four children in a million. The cause is unknown. Symptoms often remain omitted until the tumor is very large. The treatment is almost always a combination of chemotherapy to the tumor to make it smaller, and surgery or radiation to remove the tumor.” Kenric and his parents were doing the impossible for the cancer to beat. Very expensive irradiations in the PSI in Switzerland, endless treatments in UZ Leuven, nothing was too much trouble. Constantly oscillates between heaven and hell, but to no avail
