Help unravel a tangle of disease

One day in February day didn’t go well for Denys. His tooth was pulled out, then at school he made a paint stain on his classmate’s dress and the teacher rebuked him and then the mother was angry with him too… It was not a good day for sure… At midnight the boy woke up with pain in the head and in the abdomen. He couldn’t get up in his own, so he finished the night at the hospital. Denys had a brain hemorrhage because of inborn defect of blood vessels. This is a rare disease but it is curable. The surgeons stick “unnecessary” vessels with special medical adhesives which is administered by means of micro-catheters. The family has to buy all these medical materials but its cost is unrealistic for them.

Little Denys grew up and developed like all children. Sometimes he was lazy, sometime too active. He went to the first grade not long ago but his school record book was full of rebukes. Once he behaved not very well and both his teacher and his mother were angry with him. He was sad when he went to bed. At midnight pain woke him up. When his mother put him on a chair he fell down. The ambulance brought Denys to the hospital. There the boy was thoroughly examined and then was sent to the regional experts. There the neurosurgeons confirmed hemorrhage and prescribed treatment that helped the boy to get back to normal. However, there is a risk of another hemorrhage because Denys has an arteriovenous malformation, that is an abnormal connection between arteries and veins in the brain which resembles a ball of yarn. At this point, the blood circulation is abnormal. Such pathology is successfully treated surgically by means of medical adhesives and micro-catheters that the family has to buy because they are not available at the hospital. For the family it is just an impossible amount. Moreover, any time the boy may have a recurrent hemorrhage the consequences of which can be irreversible. Denys cannot wait. Let’s help this boy together.

Name: Denys Posunko, 16.10.2008

Location: Dnipropetrovsk region

Diagnosis: arteriovenous malformation (AVM)