Vika wants to breathe

Close your eyes for a minute… Then close your nose and your mouth with your hands and hold your breath – remember the game from your childhood "Who can stand it longer?" For us these were just games we played when we were children. Though they were not so complicated and painful and we were the ones who made the choice – if we want to play or not. For Vika this is not a game, this is her real life: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. To make the breathing process easier for her, she needs Pulmozyme. Now the girl mainly breathes with the help of an oxygen concentration device.

Vika’s daily routine is hardly to be envied: she wakes up connected to the oxygen concentration device, then turns the device off and goes through her hydrotherapeutic procedures; then it’s time for inhalations, at a time she may take up to 3-4 various medications, with Pulmozyme and antibiotic being a must; afterwards, the oxygen level in her blood is measured; and later on Vika has consumptive cough as the inhalations lead to expectoration, so the cough lasts for up to half an hour with no breaks; then, if she feels good enough, she goes to school.

More and more often Vika breathes through the oxygen concentration device on her way to school. When at school, the girl still has her cough and difficulties breathing as in the game described above. Her day ends in the same way it begins. The only problem is that if, God save, Vika does not have her Pulmozyme inhalation one morning, she will definitely not be able to go to school, and if she will not have such inhalations for a week or two, her lungs will not be able to function at all.

Only Pulmozyme inhalations for the girl cost about 10 000 UAH a month. Such an amount, so vitally needed, is too high for Vika’s father to cover. 63 955 UAH – this amount will be enough to pay for the vital medicines for Vika for six months.

While we, adults who care, fight for every day of Vika’s life, the girl does not sit idle. She hurries to live her life as she knows she is less lucky then other children. Little Vika manages to attend school, draw, sing and do handicrafts. This girl takes part in various competitions and takes leading places. She also contributes to cover the cost of her treatment, while selling the beautiful things she does with her hands at the hospital. When she acts on scene, at the backstage she has to breathe through her portable oxygen concentration device.If you look at her photos, you will see that on many of them she stands, spreading her arms wide, as if making a deep breath, it is her subconscious act. Vika herself says that in such a way she demonstrates her love to life and to everything around her! Vika wants to live so badly as she is in love with this hard grown-up life! And she desperately needs your help!

Name: Viktoria O. Butenko, born 19/07/2002

Location: Zaporizhzhia

Diagnosis: cystic fibrosis with pancreatic deficiency, complicated course of disease