Settled in New York, but Still Within Chernobyl's Reach Serafima Leyfman was extremely proud of her long, dark hair, which spilled all the way down to her legs. Her husband had also adored her lengthy tresses. She would not cut it, not even once, after they were married. Four years ago, however, doctors told Mrs. Leyfman, 48, she had non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. While undergoing radiation and chemotherapy treatments, all of her hair fell out. "I can't see my face in the mirror," she exclaimed in broken English, recalling in a recent interview how she had felt during that time. Dabbing at her eyes, she explained that she had simply been unable to look at her bald head. While no one can say for certain what caused her cancer, doctors told her that it most likely had been caused by living and working so close to Chernobyl, Ukraine, after the catastrophic nuclear power plant accident that occurred there in 1986. "Nobody explained to us that it was dangerous to our health," said Mrs. Leyfman, who now lives in Midwood, Brooklyn, after moving there from Belarus, the country bordering northern Ukraine that bore the brunt of Chernobyl's radioactive fallout. Doctors said that her son Yan, who was born in Belarus in 1989, and later suffered a rash of health problems, including cysts, sores and tooth loss, might also have been affected by the radiation that blanketed the region. Before Yan's birth, Mrs. Leyfman had worked as a bookkeeper at an insurance company about 12 miles from Chernobyl's damaged reactor. At her company's urging, she put herself in further danger of contamination by assisting with a program to pick and package potatoes from nearby fields to deliver to needy Chernobyl residents. When her son was born, he seemed fine at first. Then his body began to sweat and swell to such an extent that, one day, his eyes disappeared into the folds of his face. Doctors suspected food allergies. If so, there wasn't much to be done about it. "What food?" asked Mrs. Leyfman, whose family, like many living under Soviet rule at the time, suffered through constant shortages. People stood in line for hours to buy whatever they could off the barren grocery shelves. Milk, she said, was practically nonexistent. The rare banana was treated like a delicacy. "We might spend a week eating it," she said. A genial and sweet-faced woman, Mrs. Leyfman can turn anxious when recalling her difficult past. Seated next to her was her son, who joined her for an October interview at the Edith and Carl Marks Jewish Community House of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. He is now a healthy, rather bookish-looking 24-year-old. When Yan was 3, she said, relatives pooled their funds to allow her to take him to Israel for medical treatment. "When we returned," Yan Leyfman said, "my Dad didn't recognize me. I was rejuvenated. The Leyfmans" concerns about living in Belarus's blighted environment did not abate, however. They also had to cope with what they felt was an undercurrent of anti-Semitism. "We can't show we are Jewish," said Mrs. Leyfman, who was uncomfortable openly celebrating religious holidays or performing Passover rituals. "It's a stigma in the air," Yan Leyfman explained. It was hard to know what the consequences are. In December 1994, the entire family, including her husband's mother, immigrated to the United States. Once settled in New York, her husband, Semen, obtained a job on an assembly line making water pumps. Mrs. Leyfman found work as a billing clerk. When she was diagnosed with lymphoma in 2009, she had to give up her job. She was also referred to a specialist who did not accept her husband's health insurance. Her emergency treatment exhausted all of their savings and more. Meanwhile, she continued to care for her mother-in-law, who did not speak English and was showing signs of dementia. Her mother-in-law died in 2012. During that year, with thousands of dollars in medical bills hanging over her head, Mrs. Leyfman turned to the Edith and Carl Marks Jewish Community House for financial counseling. As a beneficiary agency of UJA-Federation of New York, one of seven organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund, it provided her with $650 to cover dental bridge work; the chemotherapy had caused some of her teeth to fall out, in addition to her hair. In October, she was also given $200 from the fund to pay an outstanding Con Edison bill. She still owes approximately $3,000 in medical costs. Because of all they have been through, Mrs. Leyfman and her son are drawn to the medical field. Yan Leyfman graduated two years ago from Stony Brook University and is applying to medical schools. "My goal," he said, "is to be the best physician I can be." Mrs. Leyfman volunteers as a lab technician at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. "I'm so proud of this," she said. I want to help as much as I can. Mrs. Leyfman's hair has grown back, at least most of the way: it now falls about halfway down her back. Reaching up to touch it, she beamed with pleasure.