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Flowers in His Life
// An urgent operation in Germany is Anton Dmitriyev’s only chance
A ten-year boy with a congenital heart disease can be operated in a Berlin cardio canter for ˆ36,000. Admitting Anton Dmitriev’s defect inoperable, Russian doctors confess they are unable to help him. And he needs help urgently. Anton is weak, he weighs too little, he is not enough developed physically, and he now walks with difficultly, not to mention climbing up trees or riding a bicycle. But if money is raised, if an operation is performed, Anton can easily become the happiest boy on earth.
It’s raining in Pskov, but Anton with the mother Inessa go out to meet me. They live almost on the suburb, all houses here are the same, and entrances are the same too; and a stranger can easily lose the way here. Anton studies at home, in two hours his teacher s to come, and he will stay in long. So we decide to go for a walk, despite the rain.
Anton is gloomy. Under his children’s umbrella, he slowly walks ahead, with Inessa and me following him. The boy is pigeon-toed; he walks with difficulty; and in general he doesn’t look very well. This senseless walking in the rain is not very pleasant. And every twenty meters he stops to have a rest. The least load – and Anton’s skin round his lips becomes blue. It stands looking at a paddle. He has barely uttered a word.
Back in the maternity hospital, doctors diagnosed Anton’s congenital heart disease. He spent his first six weeks in the resuscitation department, and when he became three months old, his parents turned to cardiologists from St Petersburg. After probing, the diagnosis was specified: Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) and the pulmonary artery’s atresia (absence). It means that Anton's blood is in desperate need of oxygen. Hence his bluish skin, weakness and apathy.
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For those who are encountering the Russian Aid Fund for the first time
The Russian Aid Fund was founded in 1996 to assistant the authors of desperate letters sent to Kommersant. We verify the letters with the help of local authorities, then publish the letters in Kommersant, Domovoi magazine and on the site www.rusfond.ru. If you decide to help, you will receive the banking details of the authors of the letters, and the rest is up to you. You just help you help. This approach has been popular with our readers. More than $8.4 million has been collected. We also organize relief efforts during national catastrophes, for 53 families of the miners who died in the Zyryanovskaya Mine in Kuzbass, 57 families of the policemen who burned to death in Samara, 153 families of the victims of explosions in Moscow and Volgodonsk, 118 families of the sailors who died on the submarine Kursk, 52 families of the hostages who died in the seizure of the performance of Nord Ost, 39 families of those who died in the Moscow Metro on February 6, 2004, 100 families who suffered losses in Beslan. The Fund is the winner of the Silver Archer award.
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Address: P.O. Box 50, 125252 Moscow, Russia
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Inessa was told that such operations are not performed in St Petersburg. When Anton became seven years old, probing was carried out once again, and the result was terrible: the defect was inoperable.
Entering his apartment, Anton revives at once. The room he shares with his parents is a real garden. There are flowers and decorative trees on the piano, on the window sill, on wardrobes. A rose, a myrtle, a palm tree, a rubber plant, a lily.
“You see,” Anton takes a seat beside me. “This is a rose, it is thorny. We have grown it with Mum from a tiny shoot.”
“It’s true,” Inessa adds. “I brought a shoot from work, and we took care of the small rose together.”
In summer, when it is hot, Anton hides pots with flowers and trees in his room, and takes them to the balcony in the evening so that they would breathe. He sprays them so that they would not suffer from thirst. Also, he never misses watering.
In 2004 the Dmitriyevs took Anton to Moscow. And again the boy had to undergo probing, the diagnosis was confirmed: the defect was inoperable. Last year’s result was the same as in St Petersburg: the defect was inoperable. Pskov cardiologists do not recommend Anton to go even to a sanatorium. “You shouldn’t do it,” they tell Inessa. When Inessa first heard it, she understood: she needs to search for rescue herself.
Anton walks round the room, from one flower to another, and sprays them. In all pots, big and small, clay and plastic, roundish and square, there are shells.
“Why do you need them?” I ask Anton.
“Flowers grow better with them,” the boy replies with confidently. “Do you have flowers?”
“Yes, I do. I have a cactus,” I say smiling.
Anton takes a big bag of shells from under the table.
“Take it,” he says. “It’s for your cactus. It will blossom.”
My cactus has never blossomed in three years. And I have no idea what I should do to make it bloom. But for some reason I am now sure that this curling shell will help, and I hide it in my pocket.
Inessa found information about a Berlin cardio center on the web. Having sent documents, probing results and angiography there, she received a positive reply. Berlin cardiologist Stanislav Ovrutsky told her that after treatment in Germany the boy will be able to live a normal life going to school with his classmates.
Anton communicated with children of the same age only in the nursery school. In its favorite photo, which he placed on the piano, you can see him with his friends, Natasha and Dasha.
“They took care of him,” Inessa says. “They saw that he is weak, and they stayed with him. They brought him toys and flowers.”
Anton sinks in the armchair, hunching his back. He closes his eyes, with his hand supporting his head; and you can see a blue triangle round his lips already. It is cyanosis, a sure sign of a sick heart.
The teacher is to come soon, Anton should have a rest, and Inessa takes me to the kitchen. There is a pile of copy-books on the table. I open the one entitled “World around Us”. On the first page I can see the Earth, which Anton has drawn, and below the picture - a time scale.
“A hundred years is a century,” Anton wrote.
Who knows, maybe in 50 years or so there will be a huge garden, grown by Anton. A garden of roses, rubber plants and myrtles. The soil in that garden will be covered by curling shells; and flowers and trees will be in blossom.
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981,725 rubles needed to rescue Anton Dmitriyev, 10!
Stanislav Ovrutsky from the Berlin cardio center says, “Judging by Russian experts’ conclusions, Anton has Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) and the pulmonary artery’s atresia. In our center we will thoroughly examine the boy to define to what extent the pulmonary artery is developed. If possible, our surgeons will restore normal blood circulation between the right ventricle and the pulmonary artery. If there is no pulmonary artery at all, such operation is impossible. Then surgical treatment will be performed to reduce cyanosis.
Berlin doctors are sure that the second variant is improbable, because, according to Russian medical documents, the boy has a pulmonary artery. Berlin doctors only need to make sure it’s true.
Dear friends! You have already helped four children to be operated in the Berlin cardio center. The centre has charged the Dmitriyevs with ˆ36,050. This sum includes examination, an operation and a 20-day stay in the clinic. Anton’s mother Inessa will live in a hotel for parents for free, and the Dmitriyevs’ airline tickets will be paid by our partner, the “Podari Zhizn” (“Grant a Life”) charity fund. As usual, our permanent partner, the Kapital investment group, will donate 262,000 rubles (find more details at www.rusfond.ru). Thus, it is necessary to raise another 981,725 rubles. Anton's parents have no such big funds. You can transfer donations to the Sberbank account of Anton’s mother, Inessa Dmitriyeva, and to the “Pomoshch” (“Aid”) charity fund, whose founders are the Kommersant Publishing House and Lev Ambinder. You can find account details with the fund. It is also possible to pay with credit cards or web-money via the e-payment system (find more information at www.rusfond.ru). We appreciate every ruble you may donate.
Russian Aid Fund experts
Olga Korshakova
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 07, 2008
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