"I have hair on the portrait, and I don’t have it in real life", says Sasha Kulikova.
Photo: Dmitry Lebedev
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A Way to Revive
// Sasha Kulikova needs high-dose chemotherapy and autotransplantation of bone marrow
The girl is 10 years old. She has brain cancer. Sasha underwent six chemotherapy courses. Each time the tumor disappeared, but then it returned each time. The tumor stretches from Sasha’s head along the spinal marrow, wrapping the spinal cord like a stocking. It is necessary to kill Sasha together with the tumor, and then to revive Sasha leaving the tumor dead.
We are playing chess. It might be silly and sentimental of me, but I staked that if the girl outplays me, she will survive. Her chances to survive are equal to the chances of a ten-year-old child to trim at chess a grown-up man. We are sitting on the couch and playing. Sasha’s parents, nice young people, are looking at us and smiling. They seem to be seriously hoping that their daughter wins. I don’t think they have made a silly stake like I did. They just want Sasha to win, because victory would make her happy.
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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.
The Russian Aid Fund
Address: P.O. Box 50, 125252 Moscow, Russia
www.rusfond.ru
e-mail: rfp@kommersant.ru
Telephone: +7 (095) 943-9135
Telephone/fax: +7 (095) 158-6904
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Sasha’s another course of chemotherapy ended yesterday. Chemo is almost like poisoning. Sasha will be suffering tomorrow. Very badly. The second or third day after chemo is always like that. The quantity of leucocytes, thrombocytes, erythrocytes, and other blood cells reduces drastically, causing weakness and nausea. It will be tomorrow. Today, Sasha sledged with her younger brother, because she likes sledging and her little brother. And then the brother was sent away to grandmother, so that he won’t see Sasha suffering tomorrow.
We are playing chess sitting on the couch above which Sasha’s photo is hanging. On the portrait, the girl has long black hair and long fluffy black eyelashes. The girl who sits on the couch in front of me has neither hair, nor eyelashes. Sasha said:
-- I have hair on the portrait, and I don’t have it in real life.
-- I don’t have hair either,-- I said rubbing my bald head. – But your hair will grow, unlike mine.
We are playing chess. Sasha’s father is telling me how he took the girl to children’s Christmas party in the Kremlin.
-- Oh, -- says Sasha moving her bishop, -- Daddy treated me to pizza after that party, and then I felt so sick in the car that I will never ever eat pizza again.
Sasha’s father is saying that the girl was sick for several days. She underwent medical examination, and a tumor hampering the circulation of cerebrospinal fluid was discovered in Sasha’s head. Doctors insisted on immediate operation. Sasha was brought to hospital, but the very night before the operation her breath stopped.
-- If we were at home, -- Sasha’s mother says, -- we wouldn’t have made it to the hospital with her.
Sasha doesn’t remember it. She had such a terrible headache that she remembers nothing.
-- My breath stopped? -- asks the girl in horror. – How scary!
-- There’s nothing scary, -- I lie cheerfully. – Breath stopped, so what? It resumed, thank goodness.
We are having a real battle on the chessboard. Sasha is carrying out a massive onslaught on king-side, and I am building a strong wedge in the center out of my queen and rook, reinforced by a bishop.
Sasha’s father is telling me that the girl had chemo- and X-ray therapy after the operation. The tumor disappeared, but then returned after several months. Chemo and X-ray again. Then there were several months of relative health. Sasha even went to school. And then again, pains in the back, headaches, chemo, X-ray.
Sasha and I are listening and playing. Sasha’s set of chess lacks two white pawns. She has little porcelain bunnies instead. So the girl takes a bunny and wants to make an absolutely carefree move. She doesn’t see that my next move will be mate to her.
Sasha’s father is saying that the girl can’t be radiumized anymore, and that chemo is helping less and less with each time.
-- Hey! -- Sasha’s dad looks on the board and sees the threat of mate. – Watch out, Sasha!
The girl smiles and protects her king. She smiles touchingly with her pale lips and her defenseless eyes devoid of eyelashes. It is necessary to take away her bone marrow, stem cells. Then high-dose chemotherapy, which is in fact a strong poison, will kill everything alive, including the tumor, in Sasha’s body. Then it is necessary to transfuse into Sasha her own stem cells, in order to revive her, and to leave the cancer in her brain and spinal cord dead. It is a hard operation. Doctors in St. Petersburg could have done it, but they refused. Now it can be done only in Germany. Sasha has two or three weeks, while the last chemo is still working.
Listening to the girl’s father, I become distracted from chess, and lose my queen. With this advantage, Sasha wins quickly and easily. She is good at playing chess. She feels bad about outplaying me.
So I swear that I didn’t surrender my queen on purpose.
&“Sasha’s prognosis is good!” said Professor Olga Zheludkova, head of the neuro-oncology department at the Federal Center of Children’s Haematology. The doctor said that 10-year-old Sasha Kulikova has a germ-cell tumor, that is brain cancer with metastases into brain and spinal marrow. The second to last chemotherapy course gave a 10-month long respite to Sasha. Then pain in the back reappeared. Monitoring survey discovered a new backset of the disease.
“To overcome the tumor completely,” said Professor Zheludkova, “Sasha needs double autotransplantation of bone marrow and high-dose chemotherapy.” The doctor believes that the girl can receive effective help only in German clinic of haemotology, oncology, and bone marrow transplantation in the city of Idar-Oberstein. There the doctors will take Sasha’s blood to receive stem cells, carry out high-dose chemotherapy, and then autotransplantation. “This kind of tumor responds well to such treatment,” said Zheludkova. It was here that she said that Sasha’s prognosis is good: “The girl is 90 percent intact. She doesn’t have coexistent diseases which could have hampered the tumor’s successful treatment.”
German doctors prepared a bill of ˆ103,000. Usually, the Russian Fund of Help does not undertake to raise such amounts, considering it impossible. However, a blessing in disguise came along. In late 2006, we raised money for curing Lina Tuichieva (4 years, complex cardiac defect) in Germany. On January 8, Lina and her mother Tatyana arrived to German clinic. After several days of medical examination, and treatment, German doctors arrived to conclusion that operation should be postponed for 1.5-2 years. Thus, ˆ52,000 remained, and Tatyana Tuichieva suggested “immediately spending the money on saving another child”. So, we need to raise ˆ51,000. Our constant partners, Ingosstrakh company and Kapital investment group will donate $11,500 and $10,500. Thus, the sum to collect is ˆ33,812, or 1,163,150 rubles.
Those willing to help with large sums in euros (no less than ˆ5,000) can transfer the money directly to the clinic. Our fund opened a bank account for ruble donations for Sasha’s father Maxim Kulikov. Any sums will be greatly appreciated. The fund has all banking details.
Expert group of the Russian Fund of Help
by Valery Panyushkin, specially for the Russian Fund of Help
All the Article in Russian as of Jan. 26, 2007
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