Hello,
Yulia has just turned 20 years old, and at the age of 19 she
was diagnosed with leukemia...
Yulia was studying journalism at college, she had friends, plans and
dreams. Then all of a sudden the world collapsed...
As it always happens, the disease came unexpectedly. It all began with
extremely severe pains in the legs and small of the back. At first
Yulia did not pay any attention to them as she is not in the habit of
complaining, so she was just swallowing tons of pain killers. Then the
drugs stopped relieving the pain, and we had to call for the
ambulance, but it did not help either. Yulia was admitted to a
hospital.
Our girl spent 2 months at the hospitals of her hometown Orel without
any diagnosis, just going from one hospital unit to another. Blood
tests several times a day, X-rays, day-long IV drips, all to no avail:
the pain was unbearable and even narcotic painkillers did not help.
Sometimes she could not even get up from her bed or turn to the other
side. "I felt like I was a 90-year-old wreck or a vegetable", that's
what a 19-year-old girl thought.
The doctors in Orel could not tell us anything, so Yulia's mother was
going to Moscow several times a week with her papers. She was begging
the professors to have a look at them and say what that could be.
Meanwhile time was slipping away. Lumps appeared all over Yulia's
body, and she stopped eating too. Finally after lots of effort Yulia
was admitted to the Moscow Hematology Center, where she got her
diagnosis.
It did not frighten Yulia: she knew that the disease is curable, one
just has to have the power to struggle till the end. It turned out
that the struggle itself is not enough: one also needs a considerable
amount of money to pay for the bone marrow donor search and the
transplantation. For an average family from a small town that has just
recently lost the father, and the mother who cannot work as she has
been taking care of Yulia for the last 6 months, it is impossible to
find such amount. Plus the mother also has the younger daughter to
take care of.
After each chemotherapy course Yulia has serious complications which
even brought her to the intensive care unit in a grave condition. The
disease gave way for a while, but then there was a relapse, and now
Yulia needs a transplantation as soon as possible, otherwise the whole
year of the doctors' hard work and Yulia's struggle will be wasted.
She is just 20 years old, she has not seen anything in life and she
wants to live so much, to become a journalist, get a family and help
others after what she's gone through herself. Yulia loves reading,
among her favorites are Shakespeare's tragedies... Can it be that her
own life will turn into a tragedy too?
No one wants to die at the age of 20!
Update as of August 10, 2010.
Yulia died on July 10th in Orel from relapse. Only today we were able
to get in touch with Yulia's mom and find out. We are apologizing to
Yulia's supporters for this delay. If no one objects, we will use
donations sent for Yulia's treatment to repay the debt for donor
searches for other patients.
