Cancer Research Funding Campaign in the memory of Saltanat Mustafayeva

In February 2019 my mother, Saltanat Mustafayeva, was diagnosed with Stage 3 colon cancer. During the period of the 14 months of a very lopsided battle with the disease, she had to undergo multiple surgeries, rounds of chemotherapy and take vast amount of medication. Yet, to our family’s big devastation we lost her to cancer on 21 April 2020, exactly one month short of her 55th birthday.

My mother has always been and will forever remain a role model for me – always positive, cheerful, never giving up and strong. She has spent enormous amount of effort to bring my sister and me up, and ensure we have all the necessary tools to be ready for adult life. As kids, we did not understand it but very often she gave to us things by sacrificing from herself. She has always been there for her family and friends, and she had always been kind in heart she taught us to be kind to others as well.

Observing her fighting this disease and falling weaker with every passing month and eventually losing the battle, was the most difficult experience in my life – not being able to do anything to stop it. Having spent large part of my life away from home, not being able to be with my mother in her last days due to COVID-19 global lockdown and saying good-bye over whatsapp video call have all left me devastated. Now, sitting in my living room and not being able to do anything at all to be closer to family in this difficult moment, I have decided to raise the first fundraising campaign of my life to help all those who are battling with the cancer (especially in these difficult times when millions of people are locked in their houses, lost jobs and not getting the necessary medical attention due to the shortage of medical staff). In return, I pledge to sacrifice all of my strength to the campaign and donate first 5,000$ to kickstart the fundraising.

Looking back over the past 14 months and thinking of the most important aspects necessary for cancer fighting patients, based on my own experience, I can think of three main things:

Being close, supportive and understanding to the cancer fighting loved ones at all times– I wish I had spent more time with my mother, and especially during the last months of her life.

Provide timely cancer screening for prevention or cure of the disease at the early stages and sufficient funding to cover all the medical expenses during the treatment period – my mother’s cancer could have been prevented if she had performed timely cancer screening on a regular basis after she turned 40 years old.I wish I could turn the time back to make that happen but, unfortunately, it is not possible. All I can do right now, is to try to increase awareness of this important early detection to prevent or successfully treat cancer in the early stages and advocate inclusion of this procedure in mandatory order by healthcare authorities worldwide.

Increase funding of cancer research to accelerate finding cure to this deadly disease that takes life of ca. 10 million and affects 19 million people annually (equal to 3 populations of Singapore, 2 populations of Azerbaijan and 1 population of the Netherlands – countries where I’ve lived during different stages of my life) – you do not really think of it until you actually face it first hand, and then you realize how important it is to find the cure to this deadly disease that can ‘knock’ on anyone’s door at any point of life.

Please always remember to take care of yourself and your loved ones, and appreciate every single moment you spend together. This is the circle of life, parents will go, and children will grieve for them. But sometimes circle of life works in the opposite direction (children go before parents), and we are obliged to prevent this from happening, accelerate research and find cure to this deadly disease that takes life of 300,000 children annually.

All the monies raised will be donated to Cancer Research UK, the world’s largest charity dedicated to saving lives through research. Vision of the fund is to bring forward the day when all cancers are cured. Crowdfunding campaign will last for 40 days.No money is big or small for a big cause, so please help to share this among your family, friends and network. You DO NOT need PayPal account for donation, just choose PayPal as payment option and choose credit/debit card payment (any supported Visa/MasterCard is accepted). If you have any issues transferring money via the portal, you can also transfer to my bank account with UOB Singapore, account number 365 305 5003 (SWIFT code UOVBSGSG).

For now,

“Rest in Piece, mama - we will miss you. Thank you for everything you have done for us! We hope this campaign initiated thanks to you will contribute to saving lives of many people years ahead. May we meet again!”

Javid Mustafayev on behalf of himself and his sister Najiba Mustafayeva