Hello!
We came to St. Petersburg from Nizhny Novgorod. My daughter Marina is seven
years old. She goes to the first grade at school. Marina is a very capable
girl. She loves reading, needlepoint and children's crossword puzzles. She's
also crazy about animals and dreams of making a parachute jump.
Marina got sick when she was four. My daughter went through all chemotherapy
blocks with lots of courage. After discharge there were two more years of
maintenance chemotherapy. It seems that the worst was behind us. But fate
prepared a new blow for us: the doctors diagnosed her with a relapse. Marina
could not believe it! Back to chemotherapy, back to IV drips and severe pains...
The doctors said that my daughter needs a bone marrow transplantation. Based
on the matching results I will be her donor. Now we have to find 500,000 roubles
for the device needed for haplotransplantation.
At present we have to rent an apartment and buy an expensive antifungal
drug – Fluconazole. And that is just the beginning... We really need your help!
St. Pete's is not our home town, and we're now far away from our home and family.
We hope that everything is going to be fine, for there are lots of good people
out there! In our family, we always teach our children to be kind and tell them
that good always prevails over evil.
There is so much to see and do yet for Marina, and most importantly – to become
a good person! And she knows that she will. Because life is wonderful!
Respectfully and hopefully,
Olga Andreevna,
Marina's mother
Update as of June 24, 2010.
Unfortunately, transplant from an unrelated
donor did not engraft. Haploidentical transplantation from Marina's mother
is under discussion.
Update as of August 4, 2010.
It has been two weeks since transplantation. Marina is still in cytopenia.
She does not feel well due to stomatitis. She cannot eat and is very
fatigued. Several times she had fever and her catheter was replaced.
We are waiting for the donor's bone marrow to engraft.
Olya, Marina's mom
Update as of August 11, 2010.
Unfortunately, mother's cells did not engraft. Marina is now planned to
undergo cell transplantation from her father, which means one more set
of equipment for haploidentical stem cell transplantation needs to be
purchased, while they still owe for the set for previous transplantation.
There are no other treatment options left. Help is needed urgently, as
Marina has been in cytopenia for a long time, and it may cause very
serious complications.
