Two diseases – one child

"I don’t know how to begin…" – these are usual words of a heartbroken mother, who is ready to sacrifice anything, even her life, to save her sick child. Cancer is a terrible sentence. When you hear this word, your soul shrinks in horror, and time starts to countdown. But it is even more frightful, when this irreversible sentence relates to your little child. The entire world turns over, the past loses its meaning, and your mind is in a cold sweat. How to outwear this sorrow? How can you look at unbearable pangs of your own kindred blood who has become the sense of all your life?

Olesia Burzayeva was delivered her daughter Lilia after the fourth attempt to carry a child. Practically all her pregnancy the prospective mother was in the hospital to prevent a miscarriage. A baby was born in time, straight in 40 weeks. The act of delivery was very difficult for Olesia and lasts over 16 hours. After the girl had been born, she practically showed no vital signs and cried only after being connected to an oxygen supply. Then they took a specimen of blood from her heel and inoculated the baby with BCG vaccine. The blood test showed that the baby had a rare genetic disease – phenylketonuria. In three months after inoculation the girl was diagnosed lymphadenitis – two quail-egg sized lumps on her armpit and on a shoulder. Doctors had operated the girl twice for lymph nodectomy, spaced a fortnight apart. And the day before the 4th birthday of the girl, on 5 April 2014, Lilia together with her mother were put in the Children’s Oncohematological Department of Donetsk Regional Central Clinical Hospital with a diagnose of anemia: hemoglobin dropped to 27. She was analysed the blood in the hospital. It is impossible to describe what Olesia, the mother of the sick child, passed through when the doctors punctured her daughter’s back and chest without anesthesia for 4 times.

The diagnosis made by specialists wasn't encouraged at all: acute lymphoblastic leukemia, an expanded form. Treatment has to be long, at least two years, and very hard. Only God knows whether the organism of the girl suffers from phenylketonuria, which is weakened with a strict diet, will suffer chemotherapy. Doctors shrugged their shoulders, they haven’t yet had such cases in their practice...

While her daughter is undergoing the treatment, the mother has to buy medicines according to a list every day. In addition to primary medicines, the list also includes cotton wool, spirit, glass-droppers, normal saline, extension tubes for dropper extensions, syringes, leucoplasts, bandages etc. Generally, besides "chemotherapy" which is paid by Rinat Akhmetov’s Charity Fund "Development of Ukraine", it is necessary to buy EVERYTHING! During the first five days of Lilia’s stay in the hospital one visit to the drugstore costs 700 UAH to her mother. Olesia is a single mother and is on the child-care leave. The mother’s and daughter’s source of income is a disability pension and a disability allowance. Money runs extremely short. To help the sick girl, money is needed for her complex and long-term treatment as well as special nutrition for those ill with phenylketonuria.

It is hard to live in this world without compassion and mercy, especially for a sick person. It is compassion and mercy which are an inseparable merger of understanding and a noble action. It is very important TO DELIVER HELP IN TIME to the sick little girl and give hope to her relatives. Together we can feel their pain and extend a helping hand.

Name: Lilia A. Burzayeva, born 08/06/2010

Location: Donetsk

Diagnosis: acute lymphoblastic leukemia, pre B-variant with noexpression SD 13, expanded period; phenylketonuria (metabolic disorders in the organism, wrong protein breakdown).