A Sore Topic for Paul

“Hello everyone, my name is Pavlo. I’m 12 years old. I have spinal muscular atrophy. I’m keen on reading and chatting with my peers. But I can’t jump and run fast because I have bad legs”, this is how Pavlik narrates about himself. Spinal muscular atrophy was the disease that no one expected in the Geval family 12 years ago. But misfortunes never come singly.

Until Pavlik was one year of age, the family lived an ordinary life like everyone else without suspecting of anything, but his mother began to notice that her child was falling all the time, while the other children begin walking. The family turned to doctors; at first this terrible diagnosis was only an assumption, but then after testing the genetic analysis it has been confirmed. This is a sore spot for this family as well as for every family in which a child with the SMA diagnosis grows up. For nine years Pavlo’s mother has been one on one without any piece of advice or help. The boy’s dad deserted the family.

Now the mother and her son are no longer alone; having received the right recommendations they have found the way out. Pavlik undergoes the courses of treatment 3 times per year in Kiev at Bersenev Medical Cener, which yields good results. However, the end shouldn’t be put on treatment. A new course of treatment is coming soon, and the family is short of funds. Regular injections improve the boy’s state of health significantly and shouldn’t be skipped so that not to lose what has been achieved over the years of struggling against SMA – a disease due of which the child can’t live a full life like all his peers, who can jump, run, squat… All of these quite usual things Pavlo succeeds in doing very hard but he stops at nothing.

In addition to the painful injections which the child is given in spring, summer and autumn, the kid needs to undergo regular rehabilitations and to receive pharmacotherapy. Pavlusha’s mother has a ray of hope that SMA will be overcome, and it won’t progress taking power and her son will be able to live like all children. And her dreams will come true if we won’t be indifferent to this family and just give a helping shoulder to them!

Name: Geval Pavel Mikhailovich, 14.10.2007

City: Khmelnytskyi

Diagnosis: spinal amyotrophy type 2. Lower paparesis with mild impairment of walking function. Kyphoscoliosis of the thoracic spine, lordosis of the lumbar spine