One Disease for Two

Life challenges our family cruelly. At first our little son was diagnosed with a malignant tumor, it was removed and he had been treated for a long time. A year passed and Denys was diagnosed with hepatitis B. After two months my beloved wife Kateryna was diagnosed with it too. We had been treating our son trying to cope on our own, good people helped us to organize an examination abroad and an operation. Our financial resources are completely exhausted. 6475 UAH is what we need to treat Denis and Katerina’s hepatitis. And there is nowhere we can get them from.

On August 6, 2012 our family went to Kyiv. I was responsible for a 4-year-old son Denys who was sick and for my wife Katerina who was 6 months pregnant. With a suspected malignant tumor Denys was hospitalized at the pediatric department of the National Institute of Cancer. A difficult year of treatment was over: 11 cycles of chemotherapy, two of which were high dose, an operation aimed at removing the tumor, stem cell transplantation. Now Denys is undergoing the last stage of treatment: radiotherapy. The examination with the help of modern equipment confirmed the absence of malignant tumors in my son’s body. So the disease was defeated. The most terrible year of our life was over. We wanted to forget everything and lead a happy life in our house in Volyn where a little daughter was waiting for us. She spent the first months of her life in the family of my sister.

However, it is too early for us to celebrate because the fate prepared a new obstacle for us. 4 months ago in the course of treatment Denys got infected with hepatitis B. This disease is very dangerous for a weak body of the child. It requires expensive antiviral medicines to combat it.

Still it was not all. Our family trouble was doubled when 2 months ago the ambulance brought my wife Katya to the hospital in a serious condition. The diagnosis was the same: hepatitis B. She might have got the infection from our son when he wounded his hand on the playground. Katya kissed our son’s wound trying to ease his pain and stop his tears.

For a year we had been treating our son trying to cope on our own, good people helped us to organize an examination abroad and an operation. Our financial resources are completely exhausted. 6475 UAH is what we need to treat Denis and Katerina’s hepatitis. And there is nowhere we can get them from. So I have to ask kind-hearted people to help my dear son and my beloved wife. Sergiy Golovchyk, loving father and husband.

Mother:Katerina Golovshyk

Date of birth: 30.03.1988

Diagnosis: Hepatitis B

Son: Denys Golovchyk

Date of birth: 06.01.2008

Diagnosis: Left retroperitoneal neuroblastoma - cancer disease, and hepatitis B.