Choosing Joy: How Ilan Fought Cancer with Emunah and Courage

Ilan Yacobi’s story is deeply inspiring. He faced cancer not once, but twice and both times, with Hashem's help and tremendous inner strength, he came through it. The first time he became sick was back in high school. He recovered. But when the illness returned at age 30, the doctors didn’t think he had much of a chance. They even told him he’d never walk again. But Ilan not only walked, he ran in the Tel Aviv Marathon.

In an interview with ynet, Ilan shared his powerful life journey. “I was in high school in Ra’anana when I suddenly began coughing. For two or three months, I had this dry, terrible cough that just wouldn’t go away,” he recalls.

“One morning I woke up feeling nauseous. My father said, ‘That’s it, we’re going to the doctor.’ I was mostly hoping to get a note to excuse me from gym class. But while we were there, I casually told the doctor, ‘By the way, I’ve been coughing nonstop.’ She listened to my lungs and immediately got concerned. That’s when the marathon of tests began.”

Those tests led to a diagnosis of Hodgkin’s lymphoma which is a frightening thing to hear, especially for a teenager. But Ilan actually took it pretty well. “They were afraid they’d find something really terrible, and then it turned out to be ‘just’ Hodgkin’s,” he says. “I say ‘just’ because the recovery rate is pretty high.”

After a year of chemotherapy, Ilan was almost back to normal. But then came another challenge.

“They stopped the treatments, ran more tests, and saw that the cancer was still there as if I hadn’t done any treatment at all. So they paused everything to investigate further. And during that time, my father passed away.”

“My father was my best friend, next to my mother,” he says. “I was very close with both my parents. It was a huge loss, but even with all that pain, I kept living, finding joy, and trying to enjoy life.”

"I felt on the edge of an abyss, and the small decisions, those created the picture of me being healthy."

As for the cancer, a new biopsy showed something surprising: Ilan was healthy. “That means that in the two weeks between my father’s death and getting the biopsy results, I recovered without any treatment. I really believe that what helped me get through it was the support from school and everyone around me.”

“That first year was hard,” he continues. “I felt a mix of joy that I was healthy, and deep sadness about losing my father. I went back and forth between those feelings. But I chose to look at life positively and keep going, even with the pain and the longing.”

Ilan eventually got married and had three children. But then the cancer returned.

“This time, I really felt like I was standing on the edge of an abyss,” he says. “I almost gave up. Hashem knows how low I got, 30 years old, with a catheter and diaper, barely able to walk. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that no matter how far down you fall, if you want to get back up no one else can do it for you.”

The turning point came with one decision: to stop being depressed.

“We all have little things we can do to move closer to the life we want,” Ilan says. “But we often don’t do them. For me, doing the tiniest things like eating breakfast or walking just 50 meters from my room to the elevator and back, those were huge. They were the hardest things in the world in my condition, but they helped create the picture of someone healthy. It was step by step.”

"I decided to be happy despite the difficulty, and not let the illness define me."

“I remember deciding not to let the illness affect me. Even the first time around, I didn’t want to be that kid with cancer. I kept going out with friends and trying to live normally, even while doing treatments.”

When the cancer returned, the signs came back slowly. “I had terrible back pain and eventually couldn’t walk. Over three months, it got worse. I insisted on getting a CT even when the doctor didn’t think it was necessary. That CT led to an MRI, and then I was hospitalized at Meir Hospital in Kfar Saba.”

“I was told I wouldn’t survive, and I suffered nerve damage. At 30, I was at rock bottom, a man with a catheter. A rehab specialist told me I’d probably never walk again and would always need a catheter.”

That news pushed Ilan into deep depression. “I lost my energy. But after a few weeks, when my oxygen level dropped dangerously low, I made a decision. I said to myself: Enough. No more depression.”

“As strange as it sounds things started improving from that moment. My oxygen level went up. Three days later, they removed the catheter. A month and a half later, I finished chemo and had a bone marrow transplant. Three months later, I was healthy again.”

Three years after he made that simple but powerful decision, Ilan ran 10 kilometers in the Tel Aviv Marathon.

“That was my victory,” he says with a smile. “After being told I’d never walk again. I have to say, I actually hate running. But once the doctor said I wouldn’t walk normally again I felt I had to run.”

“I trained for about six weeks. My left leg had gone numb and it took a long time to get it working again. But when I ran, it was one of the most powerful moments of my life. There was joy, sadness, excitement all together. But mostly, I felt I had broken through my own limits.”

Ilan didn’t stop there. He wrote a book called Coming to Light that tells his full story: the first cancer, losing his father, the second cancer, and everything he learned along the way.

“The book focuses mostly on the second illness, which was the turning point in my life. I also give talks about it now. I speak about how important our decisions are. I got my life back as a gift because I decided I wanted to live. I want people to understand how much power we each have inside. I’m just one example,” he says with his signature humility.