Vitalina has to live!

11-year old Vitalina Gritsevich needs immediate help: the girl is in need of a kidney transplant. “When the need for Vitalina to get a kidney transplant arose, we were absolutely sure there is a way out. Vitalina’s grandmother is the person ready to give away not only her kidney, but her own life for Vitalina to live. Vitalina was taken to the operation room at 5 p.m., and at 10 a.m. we already knew that the transplant got rejected.

It is difficult to describe how shocked we all were, her parents, Vitalina’s two sisters and her grandmother, of course. How many of our hopes got crushed with that news! I didn’t know how to break that to Vitalina, but when I entered the ward she was in, she greeted me with a question: “Mum, why are you not telling me about the kidney rejection? You have promised me to tell the truth!” I asked her: “How do you know that it was rejected?” And she gave me an answer of a grown-up: “If everything was okay, I wouldn’t be taken to an operation again”. And then added: “I know why it happened. When they took me to the operation, they took off my ring with “Save and Protect” written on it. When they take me to another operation, ask them not to take it away”. We bought this ring at the Kiev Pechersk Lavra monastery last year.

Since that day Vitalina is under peritoneal dialysis which means that every 4 hours a special liquid is charged through and poured out of the catheter in her stomach. This procedure starts at 7 a.m. and ends at 11 p.m. and happens 4 times per day.

Together with her mother Vitalina had been to one of the children’s clinical hospital in Minsk, Belarus where the doctors told her that they are ready to queue her for a non-relative donor kidney transplant. The cost of the girl’s life is 60 000 USD.

It is, obviously, very hard, although Vitalina is at home now being visited by her teachers and classmates and that gives her an opportunity to live a normal life while waiting for the transplantation. She has a strong belief in that everything is going to be fine, and that is what she says to me: “Mum, everything will be fine, you’ll see”.

This project was canceled, the amount collected is 107 257 UAH. The funds were disposed of in accordance with the Rules, Principles, and Procedures of the Ukrainian Philanthropic Marketplace (UBB) International Charitable Fund and the decisions of the Project Donors.

Name: Vitalina V. Gritsevych, born 19/10/2003

Location: Odesa region

Diagnosis: chronic Kidney Disease Stage 5. Hypoplasia of the kidneys. Primary tubulopathy. State poslerodstvennoy kidney transplantation. Hyperacute rejection crisis. Chronic peritoneal dialysis. Hemodialysis. Deficiency of vitamin D. Anemia 2 degrees.