Cerebral palsy is not a sentence. 4

Small, unruly arms and legs, a kind face and the depths of the ocean in her eyes… It’s impossible to pass by Katja and not inquire about her fate, not smile back. But when you realize that this child has got into trouble, the smile fades away. Katia struggles for her health, for small steps on the road to recovery from birth.

Childbirth with cerebral palsy isn’t always related to parents’ health or lifestyle. Sometimes brain’s intrauterine malfunction or asphyxia, endured in birth, becomes the diagnosis cause. There were complications in Katja’s birth, so the doctors used obstetrical forceps. Then, there were convulsions, coma and weeks spent in hospital. Now the girl has a cerebral palsy diagnosis; double spastic hemiplegia with gross motor violations.

When the first danger is over, working days come; the child has to win every new step, skill and ability day after day. Parents pass this way with their children. A sick child becomes their main lifelong ‘project’. Thank God, epilepsy stopped torturing Katja, so it means that full rehabilitation’s become possible. Katja’s mother does therapeutic gymnastics and massage with her at home and takes her to rehabilitation courses regularly. The kid attended hippotherapy as well as underwent rehabilitation in Kozyavkin’s ICR (International Clinic of Rehabilitation), in the Inovo clinic, Victoria’s convalescent center; she also keeps undergoing courses of treatment at Beresnev Medical Center.

Now the girl sits down without any assistance, can bend over while sitting on her mother’s arms and tries to make full feet steps. Katja is most active in the children’s team. She really wants to play with her peers, but, unfortunately, it is still not available for her. Amyotonia appears after each course of treatment and the child relaxes.
The child still doesn’t speak, but understands the speech addressed to her perfectly well and reacts on it. Katja likes cartoons very much as all children do; she likes the same cartoons her healthy peers like.

To consolidate an existing result and to see a new progress, Katja needs to undergo the next course of treatment. Her mother asks caring people to respond and help Katja make the next step in development, because every rehabilitation is an intolerable burden for her. You can become a kind wizard and take a part in this struggle and we will obviously show you our gratitude with a good result and a smile.

Name: Sazhneva Kateryna, 09.08.2010

City: Zvonetske-na-Dnipri, Dnepropetrovsk region

Diagnosis: cerebral palsy, spastic tetraparesis, retardation of all types of development, strabismus, symptomatic epilepsy, internal hydrocephalus, cerebrospinal fluid syndrome