Dream of going for a walk

The girl with the beautiful name Milena is looking at spring through the window of the Cancer Institute ward. During quarantine, she cannot even go out to breathe fresh air even for a few minutes. The virus for weakened immunity can be deadly. However, even without quarantine, the doctors do not allow to go out for a long time: it is forbidden to overload the leg affected by a malignant tumor.

Milena would be able to go for a real walk only after the surgery when an affected bone were substituted with a donor’s one. A serious disease affected the girl’s leg last fall. At that time, limping alarmed the parents, and a timely thorough examination revealed a tumor. Such an early diagnosis gives Milena a great chance to return to a full life after treatment.

She can do without a metal prosthesis and instead she can get a donor bone that will grow with the girl. However, the cost of saving the leg is almost 140 000 UAH. That’s the cost of a donor bone and a special knee segment that will hold the engrafted organ.

With these severe quarantine measures, families with ill children, such as Milena’s, are unable to pay for treatment. Let’s not leave them alone with the disease! Let’s give the girl a chance at life and make her dream of going for a walk come true!

Name: Parkhomenko Milena, 09.07.2009

City: Izium, Kharkov reg.

Diagnosis: osteogenic sarcoma