Her life depends on you

Nastya Nezhmakova is now in a critical state in intensive care. The girl’s ill health is caused by an acute condition of acute leukemia. A month of treatment in the Children’s Hematology Unit of V.K. Gusak Urgent Restorative Surgery Institute (Donetsk) costs Nastya’s parents over UAH 10 thousand, which is an impossible amount of money for the large family with three children because the treatment of this disease is long-term. And it is not only the girl’s health which is in our hands, her life depends on us!

The sad story of Nastya Nezhmakova began in April 2013 when the girl felt her eighth (wisdom) tooth cutting. Since then Nastya has started gradually losing her weight. On August 11 her lower lip became numb and the next day the face went asymmetric. The ENT specialist whom the girl’s parents consulted diagnosed otitis and prescribed treatment but the next morning Nastya fainted and was taken by an ambulance car to a Maxillofacial Surgery Department of Mariupol hospital. They extracted Nastya’s growing eighth tooth in the Department and diagnosed purulent osteomyelitis but after the treatment the face asymmetry and lip numbness persisted. On the fourth day of being discharged the girl had heat, her cheek and neck aching. The parents again turned to a specialist of the Maxillofacial Surgery Department of the Emergency Hospital of Mariupol, where a new diagnosis was made: acute lymphadenitis.

After a 10-day course of treatment Nastya went to school but in two days she again lost consciousness. The parents took her to the city of Donetsk for a consultation of a children’s hematologist, where her body was analyzed for viruses and a head tomography was made. The examination resulted in a diagnosis of consequences of purulent osteomyelitis. There was another course of treatment. But after the discharge Nastya felt yet worse – the girl was slipping away before the eyes...

On the advice of their acquaintances, the parents consulted Prof. Tsentilo (a Maxillofacial Surgery Department of Makeyevka Hospital). After examining the girl, the Professor administered a biopsy. It was however necessary to do some tests, echocardiography and consult a cardiologist prior to the operation. Having received the test results and having seen they were unsatisfactory, Nastya’s mother decided to consult not only a cardiologist but also a children’s hematologist. On December 11, after a more thorough examination of Nastya, the hematologist voiced a terrible diagnosis – acute leukemia. With that diagnosis the girl was referred to the Children’s Hematology Unit of V.K. Gusak Urgent Restorative Surgery Institute. Nastya has been in the above Department for two months. The girl was taken to intensive care because of her critical state five times over the time. At the moment her condition is extremely grave, she keeps fainting. To reduce the gravity of the girl’s condition, expensive medicines are required and Nastya’s parents plead all the people who care to help them save the daughter.

Name: Anastasya Nezhmakova, Born on 03.06.2002. Diagnosis: acute lymphoblastic leukemia.