Save Sasha's hand

There is complete silence all around. The only audible signals go from the inside. It is the heart aches for fear of losing a single favorite child. And it is the brain works: where to get money, where else to ask, what else should be done. Young parents of Sasha Shemenchuk are deaf from birth. They met in their youth, grew up together, then married and had a beloved baby. They were prepared for the difficulties of communication and adaptation of the deaf child to learning and socializing, to living in a dorm room and modest wealth. But by no means were willing to encounter face to face with the disease named cancer.

The tumor on the left forearm of 13-year-old Sasha was discovered in 2012. They did everything recommended and appointed by the doctor from the Chernihiv Regional Hospital. Four times they went to counseling and treatment to the Institute of Cancer in Kyiv. But the tumor has increased, so last spring Sasha had a surgery to remove it. And then there was another one in four months.

MRI and cytology gave an unambiguous result: the tumor is malignant and damages more and more tissue around. In March 2015 there was a relapse, so Sasha had to suffer through the third surgery. Now the cancer cells have to be destroyed with chemotherapy, otherwise the doctors predict amputation of the arm up to the shoulder. But a hand for Sasha is not just a limb; it is also his tongue, because he communicates in gesture language.

Doctors appointed three chemotherapy drugs. Two drugs were found in the hospital last year's purchases. But ifosfamidum (holoxan) was not supplied to the region. The Ministry of health has not organized tenders this year and thus left the children with cancers and their families with no medicines at all.

One three-day block treatment with holoxan costs 20 500 UAH. We seek to collect this amount at the UCM and to buy the required medication to the child.

The family lives in a dormitory, three people in one room. The mother works at the UkSD's (UTOG‘s) enterprise as a seamstress, the father takes care of the child's treatment, spending his social disability pension to rescue his son.

Name: Oleksandr O. Shemenchuk, born 20.05.2003

Location: Chernigiv

Diagnosis: haemangiopericytoma soft tissues of the left forearm (malignant tumor)